In this article we are going to list the 20 largest insurance companies in the US. Click to skip ahead and jump to the 10 largest insurance companies in the US.
The insurance industry is not just one of the biggest industries in the world, worth trillions of dollars, but it is also one of the biggest industries in the US, with some of its biggest companies also being counted among the biggest companies in the US, regardless of industries. The insurance industry in the United States is mainly divided into three primary segments, including property/casualty, commercial and home insurance and life/annuity insurance. In 2019, the net premiums of the insurance industry increased by 8.1% as compared to the previous year, while P/C net premiums written rose by at least 3.2%, while life/annuity registered by far the biggest growth which rose by 13.1% as compared to the previous year.
The total premiums underwritten, including both property/casualty and life/annuity crossed the $1.3 trillion mark, with over $637 billion attributable to property/casualty and around $679 billion being attributable to life/annuity. The total premiums underwritten have over the past decade, actually increased by 33.4$, as life/annuity registered a growth of 21.1% while property/casualty showed massive growth of around 49.7%, which is a stunning increase.
In the United States, you might be surprised to know that there is no social healthcare or universal healthcare available, despite being by far the most powerful country in the world. It is in fact one of the only advanced or developed economies in the entire world which does not have universal healthcare. The story behind this is actually quite interesting, as post World War II, it was hard for companies to attract top employees due to the fact that a wage freeze was enacted. Instead, companies started enticing employees by providing healthcare insurance. As this started catching on in popularity, more and more companies started adapting this practice and even when later on Presidents tried to enact universal healthcare, corporations rallied against it and now, the country does not have universal healthcare at all. You can learn much more details about this process and the history behind the US not having universal healthcare if you take a look at the 15 largest hospitals and health care systems in America. But due to this, hospitals charge extremely inflated fees for anything medically related as these high prices are driven down by insurance companies as haggling and bargaining goes on. But if an unemployed person even has to go for routine surgery, it can tend to cost more than their annual salary combined.
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While I mentioned earlier that the insurance industry in the United States has seen consistent growth, that was before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, which has affected the entire world. The US is the worst affected country in the world by far with 17 million cases and recently caused a depressing landmark of more than 300,000 deaths in total and over 3,000 deaths every single day. Even though two vaccines have been approved, it will still take a long, long time for things to return to normal. The US insurance industry was likewise affected, though in a more direct manner, since many events across the country have been cancelled with insurers having to pay out. Of course, since it is likely that reinsurers have to pick up the tab, primary insurers might not be as significantly affected. Meanwhile, the high mortality rate in the US has also seen the bottom line of life insurers being heavily affected, though analysts have predicted mixed earnings for life insurance companies, with some companies actually seeing an increase in the revenue. Whether things return to normalcy or even on the spectrum of normalcy in 2021 remains to be seen, but the situation is unlikely to improve before the second half of 2021 when the vaccine becomes more widely available.
As I mentioned earlier, many of the largest insurance companies in the US are also among the largest insurance companies in the world, while also being among the largest companies in the US regardless of any industry. The total revenue of the 20 biggest insurance companies is more than $950 billion, while around $132 billion was earned in terms of profit. These companies also hold more than $7 trillion in assets while providing employment to more than 920,000 employees. Truly, these companies are behemoths. If you take a look at the largest insurance companies in the US across the internet, you will see many varying definitions. Instead of using just one metric, we used total assets, employees, revenue and net profit, with higher weightage given to the former two metrics. All our information has been taken from the latest Fortune 500 list, which ranks the 500 biggest companies in the United States. So let’s take a look at the biggest insurance companies in the United States, starting with number 20:
20. Northwestern Mutual
Total revenue of the company in 2019 (in millions of dollars): 32,294
Total net profit of the company in 2019 (in millions of dollars): 1,268
Total assets of the company in 2019 (in millions of dollars): 290,318
Total employees of the company in 2019 (in millions of dollars): 5,964
The company provides various types of insurance, including permanent life insurance, life insurance, long term care insurance and disability income as well.
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