Here are charts showing how 4 key Fed life insurer financial indicators have changed over the past 5 years...

1. Assets

Life insurers' own general account assets jumped up between 2016 and 2017, then jumped again this year, to $5.5 trillion.

2. Liabilities

Life insurers' own general account liabilities jumped up between 2016 and 2017 and have increased steadily each year since.

3. Assets Over Liabilities

The ratio of life insurer general account assets to life insurer general account liabilities has seesawed between 2015 and 2019, reaching 1.15 to 1 this year.

4. Customers' Separate Account Assets

Assets in customers' separate accounts fell to $2.4 trillion in 2016, from $2.5 trillion in 2015, as the U.S. Labor Department's fiduciary rule hit. Since then, separate account assets have climbed to $2.7 trillion.

Advertisement

The Federal Reserve Board looks in U.S. life insurers’ throats every three months to see how they’re doing.

(Related: JPMorgan Worries About BBB Firm Falling Into Junk Category)

The Fed probes life insurers’ finances by compiling data from sources like S&P Global and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

Unlike many private organizations that publish reports on life and annuity issuers’ performance, the Fed distinguishes between life insurers’ own general account investments and the customer-controlled separate accounts inside products such as variable annuities.

The Fed published the new performance data for the second quarter last week. The new release shows that life insurers had a total of $5.5 trillion in general account assets and about $4.8 trillion in general account liabilities compared with $5 trillion in general account assets and $4.5 trillion in general account liabilities a year earlier.

Customers’ separate account assets increased 1%, to about $2.7 trillion.

To see how life insurers have been doing over the past five years, see the data cards in the slideshow above.

Resources

Links to documents related to the Financial Accounts of the United States are available here.

— Read Life Insurers Are Hungry For Staffers: Jacobson, on ThinkAdvisor.

— Connect with ThinkAdvisor Life/Health on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.