Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Life Insurance Industry: A Significant Positioning

By Chimezirim Odimba

The insurance industry has made an extraordinary conversion in recent years, for many reasons. In the simplest terms, insurance of any type is all about managing risk. The insurance company attempts to manage mortality rates among its clients.

The insurance company accumulates payments from policy holders, then invests it in low risk investments, after that, compensates for these funds on the occasion the person dies or the plan matures. There are groups that cover the precise occupation of crunching statistics and demographic figures to approximate life expectancy. This is why characteristics such as age, sex, if one is a smoker, and others all affect the premium that a policy holder must pay.

The greater the chance that a person will have a shorter life span than the average, the higher the premium that person will have to pay. This process is virtually the same for every other type of insurance, including automobile, health and property. Over the years, there has been a big shift in the life insurance industry.

Instead of offering straight insurance, the industry now tends to sell customers on more investment type products like annuities instead of standard insurance. Subsequently, insurance corporations are capable of competing directly with additional financial services businesses such as mutual funds and investment advisory firms. Services such as tax and estate preparation have develop into commonplace for several insurance companies to provide.

At hand, are several things to observe when looking at insurance corporations. The insurer's economic power and capacity to meet unending commitments to policyholders should be the primary concern.

Growth is greatly hindered and investment opportunities are reduced when poor fundamentals exist. Nothing is worse than insurance customers discovering that their insurance company might not have the financial stability to pay out if it is faced with a large proportion of claims.

Shareholder ownership or policyholder ownership make up ownership of insurance companies. When a business is possessed by shareholders, it is comparable to all other public companies. That is, its shares trade on an exchange like the NYSE, and it is required to report earnings on a quarterly basis.

The further types of ownership are referred to as "mutually owned insurance companies." Here, the company is actually owned by the policyholders, so an account called policyholder's surplus, rather than shareholder's equity, appears on the balance sheet. - 15275

About the Author: