The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is one of the world’s biggest providers of annuities, life insurance and employee benefits
MetLife was jumping over dollars to get to dimes.
That’s how the huge life insurance company viewed reverse mortgages and, helped along by a slap on the wrist, was the ultimate reason it decided to get out of the reverse mortgage business.
Sixty days ago, it also was the largest single provider of reverse mortgages in the United States and was expected to continue in that role, thanks to the exits from the industry by Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Financial Freedom and Seattle Mortgage.
Including home-equity conversion mortgages (HECM) endorsed by the Federal Housing Administration and proprietary reverse mortgages, MetLife Bank closed 1,047 reverse mortgages in March, more than any other company, but down from 1,289 loans in February.
Last year, after Wells jumped ship, MetLife saw itself as the cleanup hitter in a rather weak reverse mortgage lineup. It had lower pricing for its products and took the lead in the industry’s lower-risk offering, the HECM Saver. But in April, 2011, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced formal enforcement actions against MetLife and seven other national lenders for “unsafe and unsound practices related to residential mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure processing.”