Financial Services companies like to cultivate an air of invincibility, because they want their customers to feel confident about the safety of their money. I doubt that TIAA is any better or worse than other such companies today. But before 1987, they were a sort of warm, paternalistic (if strait-jacketing) "Ma Bell" type of company. Yes, that nickname implies a benign monopoly!
Free PDF Download of the "authorized biography" of TIAA-CREF: Greenough, Greenough, William C. It's My Retirement Money, Take Good Care Of It, The TIAA-CREF Story, Homewood, IL, IRWIN, for Pension Research Council, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 1990. ISBN 0-256-08657-5