In 2023, insurance premiums written in the United States amounted to 1.54 trillion U.S. dollars, which includes property/casualty premiums in addition to life/annuity premiums. This market has been steadily expanding since 2009, however saw a decline in 2020 owing to the economic effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The amount of money charged to the organization or person for the insurance coverage is known as the premium. Between 2021 and 2022, the value of gross premiums written in all 38 OECD countries grew by 100 billion U.S. dollars. Which country leads the global insurance market? The United States was the leading direct premium writing country worldwide in terms of the value of written premiums. The non-life insurance sector turned out to be larger than the life sector in the United States. In 2023, the value of both life and non-life insurance premiums in the United States was estimated to account for approximately 55 percent of the global market share. China was ranked second with a 12 percent share of the global market. Leading insurance companies globally by revenue The Berkshire Hathaway Corporation, which is owned by Warren Buffett and has its headquarters in the United States state of Nebraska, ranked as the largest insurance company globally in 2023, with revenues exceeding 364 billion U.S. dollars. Nonetheless, the subsequent largest insurer was Ping An Insurance, which is situated in the rapidly expanding Chinese city of Shenzhen.

It is forecast that the global insurance market will grow by about one trillion U.S. dollars between 2024 and 2029, reaching almost 10 trillion U.S. dollars. How have gross premiums written evolved? Gross premiums written signify the total premiums collected by an insurer before deducting reinsurance and other related expenses. Between 2000 and 2020, the value of gross premiums written worldwide had more than doubled. The value of premiums written hit its peak in 2017, at approximately 5.31 billion U.S. dollars, after which it continued to decline for the following years until 2019. However, in 2020, this figure grew by nearly four percent as compared to the previous year. Which companies dominate the insurance market? In 2022, the leading global insurance companies by revenue were Berkshire Hathaway, Ping An Insurance and China Life Insurance. Considering the market capitalization of the largest insurance companies, Allianz occupied the first position with a valuation of nearly 103 billion U.S. dollars. These industry titans, along with others such as AXA, AIA, MetLife, Chubb, etc., collectively shape the global insurance narrative through their extensive reach, diverse offerings, and significant market influence.

In 2023, the life/annuity insurance industry in the United States generated revenues of over one trillion U.S. dollars. Revenues in this sector decreased by about 10 billion U.S. dollars between 2022 and 2023. A life annuity is an insurance product, which is commonly used to provide a guaranteed income in retirement that cannot be outlived. The annuitant pays into it periodically while they’re still working, or makes a lump sum purchase upon retirement to provide a reliable, usually monthly, source of income. Life/annuity insurance lines The life/annuity insurance industry provides three lines of insurance: annuities, accident and health, and life insurance. The value of direct premiums written of annuities have been consistently higher than those of the other two lines. MetLife Inc was the largest U.S. life insurer in terms of direct premiums written. Most popular life insurance distribution channel Over half of all life insurance sales are made by independent agents. The next most used distribution channel are affiliated, or captive, agents who account for approximately one third of all sales.

UnitedHealth was the largest life insurance provider in the United States as of February 2025, with a market capitalization amounting to 426 billion U.S. dollars. Rankings of life insurance companies – additional information As well as UnitedHealth, other leading life insurance companies in terms of market capitalization in the United States, as of February 2025, were: Progressive, Marsh & McLennan companies or Elevance Health. However, many of the largest life insurance providers in the United States are not publicly listed companies, meaning they are excluded from this list. When taking total assets into consideration, Prudential Financial, followed by MetLife, New York Life, and Massachusetts Mutual proved to be the largest life insurance companies in the United States in 2023. The market capitalization measure, being the total value of the company (the total value of all outstanding shares), is frequently taken into account when composing rankings of business leaders. However, when comparing various life insurance companies, it might also prove useful to examine their revenues, net life insurance premiums, direct life insurance premiums or life insurance in force, in addition to the aforementioned market capitalization and total assets.

Between 2020 and 2022, the value of gross premiums written in all 38 OECD member countries grew by almost 800 billion U.S. dollars. In 2022, this figure reached approximately six trillion U.S. dollars, up from 5.3 trillion U.S. dollars two years earlier. OECD member countries held the lion's share of the global insurance market over the past two decades. Which companies are the global leaders? The value of gross premiums generated by the insurance industry worldwide increased from 2.51 trillion U.S. dollars in 2000 to six trillion U.S. dollars in 2022. The whole insurance industry is divided into two broad categories – life insurance and non-life insurance (in the United States and Canada called property and casualty insurance). The leading global insurance companies in 2022 in terms of revenue were Berkshire Hathaway, Ping An Insurance, and China Life Insurance. Which country leads the global insurance market? The leading direct premium writing country worldwide was the United States, in terms of the value of written premiums. The non-life insurance sector was larger than the life sector in the United States. The value of both life and non-life insurance premiums in the United States accounted for approximately 40 percent of the global market share in 2022. China was ranked second with 10.3 percent of the global market share.

The global life insurance market reached its all-time peak in 2021 before contracting in 2022. In 2022, total direct premiums in the life insurance industry amounted to approximately 2.8 trillion U.S. dollars, a decrease from the previous year. Nevertheless, total direct premiums written in the global life insurance industry more than doubled between 2006 and 2022.

This statistic shows life and non-life insurance direct premiums written globally from 2006 to 2023. In 2023, the global insurance industry wrote life premiums worth approximately 2.9 trillion U.S. dollars, and non-life premiums to the value of around 4.3 trillion U.S. dollars.

UnitedHealth was to be the largest insurer globally as of February 2025, with market capitalization amounting to approximately 481.8 billion U.S. dollars. UnitedHealth Group is a healthcare and insurance company headquartered in Minnesota. Global insurance industry - additional information Insurance is a form of risk management, where a person, called the insured or policy holder, signs a contract with a company, which is called insurer or insurance carrier, in order to protect themselves from sudden losses. The contract between the two parties, called an insurance policy, states the circumstances and conditions under which the insured will be compensated. The major types of insurance are: life/health insurance and property/casualty insurance. The amount of money charged by an insurance company for active coverage is called an insurance premium and is most often paid in monthly installments. In 2022, the value of gross premiums generated by the global insurance industry amounted to more than six trillion U.S. dollars. The United States is the leading country in the insurance market in terms of value of life and non-life direct premiums written, with premiums estimated at 2.96 trillion U.S. dollars for 2022. When ranking global insurers by their total assets, the Chinese insurance company Ping An Insurance placed first, with assets worth approximately 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars. Ping An Insurance was also the company with the strongest brand value among insurance companies in 2023.

United Health was the largest life insurance company worldwide by market capitalization as of January 2025. Progressive was the second-largest life insurer globally, with market capitalization amounting to almost 143 billion U.S. dollars. Life insurance in the U.S. In the United States, MetLife is consistently the largest life insurer, followed by AIG, Prudential Financial, and Aflac. On many accounts both New York Life and Northwestern Mutual are larger life insurance providers than MetLife and Aflac, however they cannot be included on this list as they are private companies and therefore do not have a market capitalization. How much larger is the U.S. life insurance market compared with other leading markets? The life insurance market in United States is more than twice as large as the next largest market in terms of life insurance premiums written. Other leading world countries in terms of value of life insurance premiums written were Japan, Germany, China, and the United Kingdom. However, the gap between the U.S. and the other large insurance markets is even starker when non-life premiums are taken into account.

The number of life insurance companies in the United States rose significantly in the first few years of the time period under observation, before decreasing year-on-year until the present day. In 2023, there were a total of 719 life insurance companies in the United States, down from 727 in the previous year. The number of life insurers peaked in 1990, with well over 2,100 life insurance companies in the United States that year. Life and annuities in the United StatesBeing home to one of the largest insurance markets in the world, the life/annuity insurance industry in the United States generated a total revenue of over one trillion U.S. dollars in 2022. Generally, life insurance provides the insured individual's family with financial protection in the event that they die before meeting that individual's financial obligations. On the other hand, an annuity is a contract whereby the insured individual agrees to pay the insurer a certain amount of money, which then entitles them to receive a series of payments from the insurer in the future. Insurers dominate different areas of the industryThe U.S. insurance market is quite competitive, with different insurers leading the industry by varying factors. For instance, the largest life insurer on the U.S. market in 2021 was Northwestern Mutual when considering company market share. However, Prudential Financial was the largest life insurer in the U.S. in 2021 by the total value of assets held.

In 2023, life insurance premiums written in the United States were valued at 714.9 billion U.S. dollars. Non-life insurance premiums written in the U.S. amounted to 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars in that year, however unlike most countries this amount includes basic health cover, meaning the U.S. is over two trillion U.S. dollars higher than second-placed China, who recorded non-life insurance premiums of 333.5 billion U.S. dollars. Berkshire Hathaway is the largest global insurer Berkshire Hathaway, which is owned by Warren Buffett and headquartered in the US state of Nebraska, was the largest insurer worldwide in terms of revenue in 2023. However, the next largest insurer was Ping An Insurance, which is based in the rapidly growing Chinese city of Shenzhen. Berkshire Hathaway vs Ping An Insurance The revenues of both insurers have been steadily growing over the past decade. However, the growth of Ping An Insurance has been more rapid for Ping An than for Berkshire Hathaway, which may indicate that the former will some day catch up with the latter.

In 2023, Prudential Financial was the largest life insurance company in the United States with assets amounting to approximately 532 billion U.S. dollars. Life insurance - additional information Life insurance is an important component of basic financial planning and acts as a form of protection against the loss of income resulting from the death of an insured individual. The person named as the beneficiary of the deceased receives the proceeds and is therefore protected against any financial impact that may result from the death.There are different forms of life insurance offered by life insurance companies. Some life insurance policies provide coverage at fixed payments for a length of time that it defined when the policy is initially taken out. After expiration of the fixed period, the previous rate of premiums can be no longer guaranteed to the insured and they are required to either forgo their coverage or accept different terms or conditions. This form of insurance is known as term insurance. Permanent or whole life insurance, on the other hand, is a form which provides the insured with life-long coverage. Term insurance is cheaper than whole life insurance as it is not designed to pay out in all cases. Many people decide to take out fixed-term policies due to their low-cost nature.

At the end of 2022, the largest insurance company in the United States by total direct premiums was Northwestern Mutual. Northwestern Mutual led the 2022 ranking with approximately 18.7 billion U.S. dollars of direct life insurance premiums written. This was followed by Metlife, with direct premiums written worth approximately 16.8 billion U.S. dollars. MetLife was also the second largest U.S. life insurer in terms of value of assets in that year.

The market size of non-life insurance in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries was expected to increase from 30.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2021 to 39.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2028. While the market size of life insurance in the GCC was expected to increase from 3.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2023 to 4.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2028.

Current GCC insurance industry

The insurance industry has experienced positive growth over the years. The market value of both life and non-life insurance almost doubled in the GCC region from 2011 to 2020. Among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, the Saudi Arabia had the largest market share of the insurance industry in 2020, followed by United Arab Emirates. Although the economic conditions during 2016 and 2018 hindered its growth, it is expected to improve during the coming years.

GCC insurance industry projections

There are optimistic projections for the industry that can be explained by the population growth and stable economic development. The governments have been implementing crucial steps that support the growth of the sector such as the continued application of mandatory insurance coverage, the reinforcement of the regulatory reforms, and economic diversification. The insurance penetration rate in the Gulf Cooperation Council region is expected to remain far below the global average of 7.4 percent until 2026. The insurance penetration rate is the gross written premium measured as a percentage of the gross domestic product. The market size of the insurance industry in the Gulf Cooperation Council was expected to increase from 26.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, to 31.1 U.S. billion dollars in 2026. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) among the GCC countries between 2021 and 2026 was expected to be the highest for Kuwait at 5.3 percent, and the lowest for Saudi Arabia at 1.6 percent.

The statistic presents the value of gross premiums written by non-life insurance companies in the United States from 2009 to 2013 and a forecast thereof until 2025, by type. The value of accident and health insurance sector in the United States amounted to approximately 5.77 billion U.S. dollars in 2013 and it was projected to grow to approximately 10.02 billion U.S. dollars in 2025.

In 2022, Brazil was the country in Latin America with the highest premium volume in the life insurance industry. That year, the country earned premiums amounting to more than 37 billion U.S. dollars. Mexico and Chile followed with approximately 15 billion and 6.7 billion U.S. dollars' worth of life insurance premiums, respectively. Brazil was also the Latin American country with the highest volume of non-life premiums that year.

The statistic presents the value of gross premiums written by non-life insurance companies in Indonesia from 2009 to 2012 and a forecast thereof until 2025. The value of non-life insurance sector in Indonesia amounted to approximately 3.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2012 and it was projected to grow to approximately 8.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2025.

The non-life insurance segment of the Saudi insurance industry is expected to grow to around 18.3 billion U.S. dollars by 2028. In comparison, the life insurance segment was projected to remain stable at 0.6 billion U.S. dollars.

Gross written premiums of insurance market

The gross written premium (GWP) value of the Saudi Arabia insurance market was estimated to be approximately 9.8 billion U.S. dollars. The value of GWP for the entire Gulf Cooperation Council region was 30 billion U.S. dollars. The value of the Saudi life insurance sector was approximately 225 million U.S. dollars in 2013, and it was projected to grow to approximately 384.15 million U.S. dollars in 2025.

Asset value of insurance companies in MENA

Ergo Sigorta A.S. in Turkey was the largest insurance firm in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in 2020, followed by Harel insurance investments and financial services and Migdal holdings. The region's insurance firms were evenly distributed among Turkey, Israel, South Africa, and Morocco. From 2009 to 2021, the total assets of Saudi insurance companies increased year on year, with the exception of 2018, when they decreased slightly. The assets of Saudi insurance companies increased by approximately 600 million U.S. dollars in 2021 compared to the previous year. Overall, the value of Saudi insurance companies' assets has increased by approximately 12 billion U.S. dollars since 2009.

The statistic presents the value of premiums written by non-life insurance companies in Thailand from 2009 to 2013 and a forecast thereof until 2025. The value of non-life insurance sector in Thailand amounted to approximately 6.67 billion U.S. dollars in 2013 and it was projected to grow to approximately 10.88 billion U.S. dollars in 2025.

In Latin America, the value of total non-life insurance premiums was highest for automobile insurance in 2021. Total automobile insurance premiums amounted to a value of almost 24 billion U.S. dollars that year. Health insurance followed, with total premiums amounting to a value of over 22 billion dollars. That year, Brazil's insurance industry registered the highest total premiums within Latin America.