Based out of Hartford, Connecticut, the Aetna Insurance Company sold its first life insurance policy in 1850. In 1853, the company was incorporated as the Aetna Life Insurance Company with former Connecticut judge Eliphalet A. Bulkeley as its first president. In 1861, the company began offering participating life insurance policies, and at the end of the Civil War, Aetna was one of the nation's biggest life insurance providers. Today, Aetna is a diversified health care benefits company providing a range of health care insurance products and related services including dental, pharmacy, group life, and disability insurance.

Aetna Insurance Company established an insurance agency in Staunton, Virginia, in the mid-nineteenth century. Alexander F. Kinney served as an agent for the company. Kinney, a Virginia resident born about 1836, was also a bank teller and a circuit court clerk for Augusta County.