Northwestern Mutual

Northwestern Mutual provides insurance, financial planning and wealth management for individuals, families and businesses. Its offerings include life, disability income and long-term care insurance, annuities, investment brokerage and advisory services. Clients work with financial professionals to combine protection and investments, plan for retirement and adjust their financial plans as their circumstances change. They can purchase individual products, pay for planning or have an advisor manage investments.

Founded by John Johnston in 1857, the Milwaukee-based company is now led by Timothy J. Gerend, chairman, president and CEO. Its historical engineering work includes Kanali, a Kubernetes ingress controller that combined API key authorization, quotas and rate limiting with distributed tracing. The repository was archived in 2020 and is no longer maintained.

Northwestern Mutual is a mutual company owned by its policyholders. It has paid policyowner dividends every year since 1872, although dividends are not guaranteed. For year-end 2025, the company reported more than 5.2 million total clients and $404 billion in retail investment client assets held or managed. Its advisor relationships use product commissions, planning fees or investment-management fees based on assets overseen, depending on the services clients choose.