New Frontier
What is MetLife’s New Frontier strategy?
New Frontier is MetLife’s five-year global enterprise strategy, focused on delivering responsible growth and attractive returns with lower risk. The strategy centers around four strategic priorities that position the company to deepen our advantage and capture value in attractive businesses: group benefits, retirement & income solutions, asset management, and high growth international markets.
As a leading global insurance, annuities, and employee benefits provider, MetLife is a trusted source of security in the lives of millions. Since selling our first policy in 1868, we’ve successfully navigated pandemics, recessions, and unprecedented global events, consistently delivering strong value to generations of stakeholders. We’re confident that our New Frontier strategy is the right approach for MetLife today.
New Frontier builds on MetLife’s market leadership and harnesses the power of MetLife’s differentiators – scale, diversification, distribution capabilities and technology – to continue exceeding our customers’ expectations while maintaining financial resilience across economic cycles.
MetLife is in the business of building confident futures. New Frontier is how we do it.
Financial accountability and performance
New Frontier is backed by clear financial commitments to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable.1 The goals over the five-year New Frontier period of 2025 to 2029 are:
- Deliver strong growth—Double-digit adjusted earnings per share growth2
- Generate attractive returns—15–17% adjusted return on equity3
- Operate with efficiency—100 basis point reduction in direct expense ratio4
- Generate cash—$25 billion+ free cash flow5
In 20256, MetLife achieved 10% adjusted earnings per share growth, 16% adjusted return on equity, and beat our direct expense and free cash flow ratio targets, while returning nearly $4.4 billion to shareholders. Learn more about our New Frontier performance targets.
MetLife’s New Frontier strategy is focused on delivering responsible growth and attractive returns with lower risk.
New Frontier’s strategic priorities
New Frontier leverages MetLife’s strengths to prioritize growth across four key areas of opportunity:
Extend our leadership in Group Benefits
Rising employee expectations are reshaping how employers support their workforce, positioning benefits as even more central to the employee experience. MetLife is the No. 1 U.S. Group Benefits provider,7 serving more than 85%8 of the companies in the Fortune 500.®
Our strategy is focused on extending our leadership in this growing market by leveraging our scale, enhancing our service and continually investing in the business to help more employers meet their employees’ benefit needs.
Capitalize on our unique retirement platform
Longer lives and evolving work patterns are increasing demand for innovative retirement solutions that deliver predictable outcomes and institutional confidence. With approximately $430 billion in retirement balances globally, we are positioned to meet the rising demand.
New Frontier is focused on MetLife’s unique retirement businesses in the U.S., U.K. and Japan - highly attractive segments of the market where we believe we have significant competitive advantages that result in very strong risk adjusted returns.
Accelerate our growth in asset management
MetLife Investment Management is a top 259 global investment firm with more than $740 billion10 in assets under management. We are scaling third-party institutional capital to generate capital-light, fee-based earnings, aligned with our disciplined risk framework and our aspiration of $1 trillion in total assets under management.
New Frontier aims to accelerate growth by building on existing capabilities, broadening our suite of investment products and harnessing complementary businesses across the enterprise.
Expand in high-growth international markets
Rising middle classes and increasing demand for insurance protection products are driving growth in markets such as Mexico, Brazil, India and China. These four markets represent approximately 40% of the global population.11
MetLife’s well-established and profitable businesses in these markets give us a clear advantage. MetLife is the No. 1 life insurer in Latin America12 and our deep franchises in India and China, built over our 50+ year history in Asia, enable expanding local partnerships.
Through New Frontier we are leveraging MetLife’s strong position in Latin America and Asia and targeting above-market growth through distribution innovation and diversified products that provide greater access to insurance in these fast-growing regions.
Visit our New Frontier Investor Day web page to learn more.
Our New Frontier strategy is a roadmap for our collective journey to a more confident future. We believe that New Frontier will enable us to reach new heights.
Michel Khalaf
MetLife CEO
Our purpose in focus
MetLife’s purpose, “Always with you, building a more confident future,” is at the heart of everything we do. Our global business strategy is no exception.
The strategic priorities and performance targets we’ve outlined go beyond the bottom line. We aim to expand the size and scale of our businesses to better serve our customers and communities with strength and compassion.
Since our founding in 1868, we’ve always recognized that growth devoid of purpose isn’t true or lasting growth. For this reason, our foundational aspiration remains unchanged: to be a global force for good, creating sustainable value for all stakeholders – from investors seeking performance to individuals investing in their family’s futures.
METLIFE
Investor relations
MetLife, Inc., through its subsidiaries and affiliates, is one of the world’s leading financial services companies, providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to help individual and institutional customers build a more confident future. MetLife has operations in more than 40 markets globally and holds leading positions in the United States, Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. MetLife Investment Management is a top 259 global investment firm with more than $740 billion10 in assets under management as of December 31, 2025.
Our all-weather New Frontier strategy builds on over 150 years of leveraging our scale, expertise and technology to serve our customers, and is designed to deliver strong growth and attractive returns with lower risk.
A confident future you can depend on
The world around us is changing faster than ever. Industries and markets are rapidly evolving. Societal needs are growing more complex by the day. Now, more than ever, MetLife is committed to innovating at the intersection of global business, social vitality and sustainability to build a more confident future for our stakeholders.
From pioneering retirement platforms to advancing asset management strategies and expanding global benefits, we’re helping businesses thrive and improving countless lives across the globe.
Every day, we’re striving to build a better future for individuals, families, and communities everywhere—because we know that building a better tomorrow starts today.
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