Cleveland, OH, July 10, 2006 – Hyatt Legal Plans has been named a finalist in the "Best in Class Call Center" category of the 2006 Call Center Excellence Awards. The awards, sponsored by International Quality & Productivity Center (IQPC), were established to honor, recognize and promote call centers that demonstrate best practices and set standards of excellence for organizations around the world. To identify and assess the leading call centers, IQPC assembled a prestigious list of call center experts and leaders to accurately and objectively evaluate the true effectiveness of top call center programs. IQPC received over 50 nominations for this competition.

"The standards we achieve in our call center are among the highest in the industry," said Chris Tomsa, client service center director, Hyatt Legal Plans. "It is an honor to be recognized for the hard work our supervisors and call center representatives put into achieving those standards every day."

"We’re honored to be among the distinguished finalists selected for this award," said Andrew Kohn, Hyatt Legal Plans’ vice president, Operations. "We’re committed to providing quality service to our legal plan members through our representatives who are trained to deliver professional, personalized assistance. Being named a finalist as ‘Best in Class Call Center’ validates our dedication to this goal."

Hyatt Legal Plans, a MetLife® subsidiary, is the largest provider of group legal plans in the country, serving more than three million participants through a nationwide network of 4,400 law firms. For more information on Hyatt Legal Plans, visit www.legalplans.com. Group legal plans provided by Hyatt Legal Plans, Inc., Cleveland, OH. In certain states, plans are provided through insurance coverage underwritten by Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, Warwick, RI.

MetLife, a subsidiary of MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) is a leading provider of insurance and other financial services to millions of individual and institutional customers throughout the United States. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, MetLife, Inc. offers life insurance, annuities, automobile and homeowner's insurance and retail banking services to individuals, as well as group insurance, reinsurance and retirement and savings products and services to corporations and other institutions. Outside the U.S., the MetLife companies have direct insurance operations in Asia Pacific, Latin America and Europe. For more information, please visit www.metlife.com.

Call Center IQ, a division of International Quality & Productivity Center (IQPC), is designed for Call Center professionals who continuously strive for excellence. Based on years of services offered to thousands of peers worldwide, Call Center IQ has gathered the most up-to-date, relevant and necessary information to help contact centers. Call Center IQ creates a learning atmosphere like no other by bringing together the best experts to share their knowledge and experience. For more information on Call Center Week 2006, visit http://www.callcenterweek.com.

IQPC and its parent organization, Penton Learning Systems (founded in 1973), have trained over 2 million executives at more than 50,000 conferences and seminars.