Summary:Insurance companies constitute a major segment of the U.S. financial services industry. The insurance industry is often separated into two parts: life and health insurance (life/health), which also includes annuity products, and property and casualty insurance (property/casualty), which includes most other lines of insurance, such as homeowners insurance, automobile insurance, and various commercial lines of insurance purchased by businesses. According the insurance rating agency AM Best, 2014 net premiums for the nearly 900 life/health companies in the United States totaled $644.7 billion, with admitted assets totaling $6.36 trillion. 2014 net premiums for the nearly 3,000 property/casualty insurance companies totaled $503.0 billion, with admitted assets totaling $1.80 trillion. Despite the large numbers of insurance companies, both life/health and property/casualty insurance are also reasonably concentrated industries, with the top 25 life/health companies writing 64% of overall premiums and the top 25 property/casualty companies writing 67% of overall premiums. Figure 1 displays the market share of the top 25 insurers versus the rest of the market in 2014.
