The largest insurance contract ever issued in business history, aggregating $400,000,000 of group life insurance with sickness and accident coverage, was closed yesterday between the General Motors Corporation and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, according to an announcement by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., President of General Motors.

Covering more than 200,000 employees of the corporation, its subsidiaries and affiliated companies, the life insurance involved is more than double the face of the largest previous policy issued by the Metropolitan. Sickness and accident benefits provided for by the contract aggregate more than two and one-half times the previous record. The plan is cooperative, the corporation assuming a substantial part of the premium.

Soon after Mr. Sloan signed the application, Frederick H. Ecker, Vice President of the Metropolitan, obtained a transatlantic telephone connection with the insurance company's London office to transmit the contract information to President Haley Fiske, who is abroad.

“I am very proud,” said Mr. Fiske over the phone, “that this great industrial organization has entrusted its group insurance to our company. It is an epochal transaction. More life insurance is involved in this one case than the Metropolitan was able to accumulate in the first twenty-six years of its existence—nearly half its business lifetime.”

Under the terms of the contract all General Motors employees of three months' service are eligible to participate in the insurance program, while new employees and those of less than three months' standing automatically become eligible as soon as the waiting period has elapsed. Individual employees will have $2,000 of life insurance and sick and accident benefits of $15 a week at a cost of $1.50 a month.

The divisions, subsidiaries and affiliated companies of General Motors that are affected by the insurance contract include Buick Motor Company, Chevrolet Motor Company, Fisher Body Corporation, Cadillac Motor Car Company, Oakland Motor Car Company, Frigidaire Corporation, General Motors of Canada, Ltd., Ternstedt Manufacturing Company, Delco Remy Corporation, Olds Motor Works, A. C. Spark Plug Company, Harrison Radiator Corporation and Hyatt Roller Bearing Company.

Others included in the group are General Motors Acceptance Corporation, Delco Light Company, Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company, Brown-Lipe Chapin Company, Jaxon Steel Products Company, Saginaw Malleable Iron Division, Saginaw Steering Gear Division, Saginaw Crankshaft Company, Armstrong Spring Company, Inland Manufacturing Company, Muncie Products Division, General Motors Export Company, General Motors Building Corporation, United Motors Service, Fleetwood Body Corporation and the Moraine Products Division.