NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Aetna Inc. , the No. 1 US life and health insurer, is considering making an unprecedented public apology and restitution payment over profits it made from insuring slaves in America 150 years ago.

The life insurance policies, issued in the 1850s, were one of the first lines of business underwritten by the Hartford, Connecticut-based insurer, which now has 47 million customers worldwide and annual revenues of $26 billion.

Payments on the policies were due to slaves' owners, not the slaves' families.

Aetna owns, and is in the process of finding a buyer for, Bermuda's Sonesta Beach Resort.

An apology from Aetna would be the first from an American corporation over its involvement in slavery of black Americans.

"By insuring the lives of human beings in the way that we insure industrial machinery, Aetna profited from this crime against humanity,'' said Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, a 34-year-old lawyer and activist who has single-handedly petitioned several American corporations to apologise for their involvement in slavery.

Her demand for an apology and restitution comes as victims of Nazi persecution and their descendants are negotiating compensation payments from German companies over slave labour charges and unpaid insurance policies.

"These profits (from slave policies) have helped Aetna to become a multibillion-dollar corporation today -- they have a moral obligation to apologise and share that wealth with the heirs of the Africans they helped maintain in slavery,'' she said.

A spokesman for Aetna, which is concentrating on its response to an unexpected $10 billion takeover offer, said the company was considering an apology.

"Aetna has long acknowledged that for several years after its founding in 1853, it may have insured the lives of slaves.

"We express our deep regret over any participation at all in this deplorable practice,'' said Aetna spokesman Fred Laberge.

"We want to make clear that we take this matter very seriously, and we are actively engaged in determining what actions might be taken,'' he added.

Farmer-Paellmann said, however, that Aetna officials told her this week the company would make a public apology and was considering increasing its sponsorship of university scholarships for black Americans as a means of restitution.

She said the giant insurance company did not mention a specific amount of money it intended to offer, but said she hoped a payment might reach hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Farmer-Paellmann started her campaign after she unearthed two slave life insurance policies dating from 1854 and 1857. Although slavery was not abolished in the United States until 1865, and so insuring slaves was not illegal, Farmer-Paellmann said slavery was largely considered "immoral and a crime against humanity'' in the 1850s.

She said, "I hope Aetna will join a growing international trend of atoning for one's past crimes against humanity.'' Farmer-Paellmann said she hoped to establish a trust to hold restitution payments from companies to be used to improve the living standards and education of black Americans, along the lines of a plan drawn up in the book "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks,'' by the writer Randall Robinson.

Farmer-Paellmann said her next corporate campaign target was the No. 8 US banking group FleetBoston Financial , on the basis of her claims that one of the company's units made profits from slave trading after it was made illegal in 1794.

Farmer-Paellmann said FleetBoston told her it was considering her request for an apology.

Representatives of the bank were not immediately available for comment yesterday.