INSURANCE

Insurers Offer to Aid Firm: Metropolitan Life Insurance and Prudential Insurance proposed a plan to rescue Mutual Benefit, a life insurance firm that was seized last month by New Jersey regulators. Under the plan, Metropolitan Life would manage Mutual while Prudential would help develop a long-range plan to protect Mutual’s policyholders. New Jersey’s acting insurance commissioner, Jasper Jackson, said the plan would be “a significant step” toward resurrecting Mutual and could lead to “a merger or consolidation of Mutual Benefit’s businesses with other firms.