The company was founded by a group of businessmen in Waterloo, Ontario and was built over the ensuing decades by managing director Thomas Hilliard.

Due to restrictive regulations on foreign ownership, Lincoln began in 1984 to seek a buyer for its share in Dominion.

The genesis of the Dominion Life Assurance Company was a meeting in March 1888 at Snyder's Drug Store in Waterloo at 4 King Street South.

The meeting included prominent local figures Isaac Erb Bowman (1832–1897), Peter Harvey Sims (1844–1920), John Shuh (1828–1901), Simon Snyder (1846–1902), and Thomas Hilliard (1841–1937).

[4] Hilliard indicated to the group that he was interested in participating in a new enterprise, and Snyder suggested they form a life insurance company.

Shares were sold to residents of Waterloo Country by Hilliard, and the company's founders contributed $65,000 of capital.

[5] The founding directors were James Trow, Samuel Merner, Thomas Hilliard, John Shuh, Walter Wells, Simon Snyder, Christian Kumpf, Peter Sims, William Snider, Absalom Merner, Jeremiah Boone Hughes, William T. Parke, Peter Erb Shantz, Thomas Gowdy, John Ratz, John Youngs, Whitford Vandusen, James Innes, and Henry Cargill.

Hillard and Roos set up their offices on the second floor of the Waterloo Mutual Fire Insurance Building at 28 King Street North.

After the depression took hold in 1929, Kumpf appointed a team to reduce the company's expenses, strengthen its reserves, develop new marketable plans, and rebuild its investment portfolio.

Upton began an organisational restructuring in 1947 that saw the creating of four assistant general managers to head the company's main divisions, with each given near-total autonomy to run his area.

In the fall of 1946, Upton visited the 56-acre Forsyth farm adjacent the Westmount Golf and Country Club to inspect it as a possible site to build a new head office, and learned he could purchase it for $75,000.

By 1953, all the residential lots had been sold, offsetting the land purchase and building construction costs for the company.

The ceremony was chaired by president Frowde Seagram, who related to the crowd, "this building surely is an indication of progress and of faith in our country and in the principles upon which the very structure of life insurance has been raised.

Faced with taxation problems due to the increase in the value of the shares, in 1956 the group began to accept offers for its stock.

On 11 January 1957, the board of directors announced that the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company of Fort Wayne, Indiana acquired a majority stake of Dominion.

[19] After the acquisition, the office of chairman of the board, which had been vacant since 1951, was revived and given to Edward Daniel Auer (1903–1975), a vice-president of Lincoln National.

Acheson was from Boissevain, Manitoba and during World War II served as an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

[22] Shortly after graduating, Acheson was hired by Schafer at the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg to work for Dominion.

In June 1984, Lincoln National announced that it intended to sell its 89 per cent stake in Dominion, citing restrictive regulations on foreign ownership.