Background
Haley Fiske a son of William Henry and Sarah Ann (Blakeney) Fiske, and a brother of Stephen Fiske. His grandfather, Haley Fiske, had established an iron-foundry at New Brunswick, which was continued by his sons until after the Civil War.
Haley Fiske a son of William Henry and Sarah Ann (Blakeney) Fiske, and a brother of Stephen Fiske. His grandfather, Haley Fiske, had established an iron-foundry at New Brunswick, which was continued by his sons until after the Civil War.
Fiske attended a private school, was matriculated at Rutgers College, and graduated B. A. in 1871.
He then worked as a reporter on local newspapers, studied law, and within two years became a clerk in the law office of Arnoux, Ritch & Woodford, of New York. The firm was counsel for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and after Fiske’s admission to the New York bar he was assigned to take charge of that company’s litigation.
Having shown marked ability as a trial lawyer, he was made a member of the law firm. Meanwhile he acquired, through his contact with the Metropolitan’s affairs, so broad a knowledge of the insurance field that in 1891, when John R. Hegeman became president of the company, he brought about the election of Fiske as a vice-president.
At that time the Metropolitan was a comparatively small insurance company, with about $258, 000, 000 of insurance in force and from $10, 000, 000 to $11, 000, 000 of annual premium. It was a stock company with a capital of $2, 000, 000 and dividends limited to 7 per cent. In 1902, largely as the result of Fiske’s advocacy, the state legislature enacted a law which placed the actual control of the company in the hands of the policyholders.
It was provided that all policyholders whose insurance had been in force for a year or more might vote for directors on condition that two-thirds of the directors elected should collectively own a majority of the capital stock. By 1914 the company’s surplus had reached $40, 000, 000, while the assets totaled $500, 000, 000. Meanwhile Fiske had popularized and expanded the ordinary life business through the payment of bonuses to the insured.
In 1915 the company was completely mutualized. The stockholders having been paid off, the election of officers was conferred on the policyholders alone. A national health campaign that may fairly be characterized as statesmanlike was initiated by the company in 1909, when Fiske, because of President Hegeman’s illness, was virtually the executive head of the organization.
The problem was to conserve the health of the workingmen and their families who made up almost 10, 000, 000 of the policyholders. An army of visiting nurses was mobilized and set to work in the industrial centers of the nation. As a result, within nine years the company’s mortality rate was reduced one-fifth.
By 1921 more than 2, 000, 000 individuals had benefited from the nursing in their homes. The death rate from tuberculosis, typhoid, and acute contagious diseases was lowered for Metropolitan policyholders more rapidly than for the population in general.
The actual money saving to the company was estimated at $3, 500, 000 a year. One outcome of Fiske’s personal interest in health promotion was the company’s investment of $7, 500, 000 in New York apartment houses to rent at a maximum of nine dollars a room together with loans on housing developments elsewhere (Haley Fiske, "Home— $9 a Room, ” in Collier’s, Aug. 14, 1926).
All those policies were vigorously upheld during the ten years of his presidency. At the time of his sudden death, the company had in force about seventeen and one-half per cent of all life insurance reported, involving more than 42, 000, 000 policies.
He was a leading layman of the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Protestant Episcopal Church, contributed liberally to the various church enterprises, notably the building of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and was versed in theology and church history.
Throughout his life Fiske gave the impression of unusual physical vigor.
He was twice married: first, on January 10, 1878, to Mary G. Mulford who died in 1886 and second, on April 27, 1887, to Marione Cowles Cushman, who survived him. He left four daughters and two sons.