Hartford Financial Group

a group in the USA that controls monopoly capital. The Hartford financial group is a coalition of oligarchic families of the city of Hartford and its environs. Formed after World War II, the group includes local insurance companies and banks. As of the mid–1970’s it controlled assets of approximately $20 billion, of which approximately $19 billion were in banks and insurance companies and approximately $1 billion was in industrial, transportation, and commercial firms.

The financial nucleus of the group is made up of Hartford National Bank and Trust, Connecticut Bank and Trust, and three life insurance companies: Aetna Life Insurance, Travelers Life Insurance, and Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance. The total assets of these companies exceed $18 billion. The Hartford financial group concentrates large sums of loan capital and acts as a supplier of capital to monopolistic groups in other areas of the country and to several regions of the USA.

In its capital investments, the group works closely with financial groups in New York. It is tied to the major New York banks—Chase Manhattan Bank, Morgan Stanley Company, and Citibank—through personal link-ups and the holding system (seePERSONAL LINK-UP). When extending loans and credit to other monopolistic groups, the Hartford group’s finance institutions generally act in concert with the banks and insurance companies of the Rockefellers and Morgans.

The Hartford financial group primarily operates in the domestic market, especially in New York State; it has few foreign operations.