Life&Health Insurers' Earn $26B in First Nine Months of 2004 Jump $161B

[seemslikeadream]

March 15, 2005 08:00 AM US Eastern Timezone

Life and Health Insurers' Earn $26 Billion in First Nine Months of 2004, According to Weiss Ratings; Industry Separate Accounts Jump $161 Billion

JUPITER, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 15, 2005--Profits of the nation's life and health insurers climbed $7.6 billion, or 42 percent, to $25.7 billion in the first nine months of 2004, according to Weiss Ratings, Inc., the nation's leading independent provider of ratings and analyses of financial services companies, mutual funds, and stocks. Industry profitability for the first nine months of the year reached its highest level in a decade due to the strong performance of insurers' investment returns, which rose $9.2 billion to $112.2 billion compared to the first nine months of 2003.


Insurers reporting the largest year-over-year increases in earnings include:

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[Liberal Veteran]

1. Health insurance companies are a blight on the country.

All they do is add a layer of bureaucracy to the system and feed off the teat of health care industry and impede real reform toward health care in this country so that EVERYONE is covered and don't have to choose between health care and food or end up in bankruptcy over medical bills.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. But they haven't beaten the profit margins of the oil industry yet!

[underpants]

3. See how privatization/competition lowers costs

See!

[RedEarth]

4. Great....it's good to see my increased premium beefing up the bottom line

...so the big wigs can get their obscene bonus.