The Continental Assurance Co. of North America, founded in Detroit in 1897, soon changed its name to the Continental Casualty Co. In 1900, Continental Casualty merged with a Chicago insurer, the Metropolitan Accident Co., creating a new Chicago-based Continental Casualty that then ranked as the fifth-largest accident insurer in the United States. Six years later, it became an international firm when it began selling industrial health and accident policies in London. In 1911, when it began to offer automobile insurance, Continental Casualty created a new subsidiary, Continental Assurance, which sold life insurance. By the mid-1960s, Continental Casualty and Continental Assurance, which shared the same headquarters on Michigan Avenue, together collected roughly $850 million in annual premiums and employed nearly 8,000 people nationwide. In 1967, these two operations became part of a new parent company, the CNA Financial Corp. By the mid-1970s, when it was acquired by the Loews Corp., CNA employed about 5,000 Chicago-area residents. At the end of the 1990s, following a 1995 merger with the Continental Corp., CNA employed about 4,500 people in the Chicago area and another 20,000 around the world, and its annual revenues reached about $16 billion, making it one of the 10 largest insurance companies in the United States.

This entry is part of the Encyclopedia's Dictionary of Leading Chicago Businesses (1820-2000) that was prepared by Mark R. Wilson, with additional contributions from Stephen R. Porter and Janice L. Reiff.