Swiss Life

Life Insurance & Pensions

Swiss Life turned mortality tables into a $130B asset management machine. Founded in 1857 as Schweizerische Rentenanstalt, the company sells life insurance and pensions - essentially arbitraging human lifespan predictability. Individuals don't know when they'll die; populations are actuarially certain. Swiss Life collects premiums, invests in long-duration assets (real estate, infrastructure, bonds), and pays claims according to statistical certainty rather than individual outcomes. This temporal arbitrage - converting individual uncertainty into collective predictability - generates consistent returns across market cycles. The company's 165-year survival proves that businesses built on statistical laws rather than competitive advantages can outlast even the most innovative competitors.

The Biology of Business

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