US Finance and Insurance Sector
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 479,320 establishments in the finance and insurance sector engage in the creation, liquidation, and transfer of financial assets and/or support financial transactions. The sector connects savers and investors with borrowers and includes financial intermediaries, which use the funds of savers to make loans or investments. Firms may also act as agents and invest on behalf of others. The infrastructure of financial markets includes systems that provide information, payment, clearing, and settlement services that support and facilitate transactions.
Balancing Risk and Reward
Risk is an integral part of financial markets, and investments can lose some to even all of their value under certain types of conditions.
Government Regulation
Industries in the finance and insurance sector are subject to extensive government regulation at varying levels.
Industry size & Structure
The finance and insurance sector is comprised of 479,320 establishments that employ 6.7 million workers and generate $5.7 trillion in annual revenue, according to government sources.
- The finance and insurance sector represents 8.9% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs 5% of the country's workers.
- The sector is somewhat concentrated at the top with the 20 largest firms representing 29% of revenue, but it is fragmented at the bottom.
- In addition to employer establishments, the finance and insurance sector has 755,000 owner-operated establishments with no employees. The subsector with the highest numbers of nonemployer establishments is agencies, brokerages, and other insurance-related activities (54%). The owners of nonemployer establishments typically perform the work and may outsource support functions like marketing and accounting.
- The finance and insurance sector shed about 90,000 establishments in 2021, which equals about 16% of existing establishments, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, the sector added about 119,000 new establishments, which is equivalent to 21% of existing establishments. As a result, the sector had a growth rate of 5.1%.
- The finance and insurance sector is forecast to grow its employment base by 4.4% overall in 2021-2031, which is lower than the national average of 5.3% for all jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Industry Forecast
US Finance and Insurance Sector Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Nov 14, 2024 - Bad Debt Charge-offs Surge
- US banks reported $21.3 billion in net charge-offs in the second quarter of the 2024, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). That’s the highest quarterly net charge-off rate since the second quarter of 2013 and 20 basis points higher than the same period in 2023 as customers continue to battle higher interest rates and inflation. The charge-offs were due largely to credit card delinquencies and bad commercial real estate loans.
- High inflation and increasingly erratic climate-related losses put pressure on non-life insurance lines’ profitability over the past few years, according to Deloitte. Many insurers responded by hiking premium pricing and reducing coverage for certain high risks. Life insurance and annuity carriers jockeyed for position in a crowded field to take advantage of the surge in consumer interest in savings-linked products as interest rates increased. These short-term strategies helped drive the best year-over-year underwriting results for property and casualty (P&C) carriers since 2007 in the first quarter of 2024 and the highest first quarter sales of annuities for life and annuity (L&A) providers since the 1980s.
- Net income for the 4,539 FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings institutions increased 11.4% from the prior quarter to $71.5 billion during the second quarter of 2024, according to the FDIC. The quarterly increase in net income was largely driven by nonrecurring items including an estimated $4 billion reduction in reported expense related to the FDIC special assessment, approximately $10 billion in one-time gains on equity security transactions, and the sale of an institution’s insurance division that resulted in an after-tax $4.9 billion gain. These nonrecurring items were partially offset by several large banks selling bond portfolios at a loss and the industry’s $2.7 billion increase in provision expense.
- The finance and insurance sector was among the 10 sectors reporting growth, as measured by the Institute for Supply Management’s Services Purchasing Managers’ Index, in October 2024. US finance and insurance sector employment increased slightly during the first nine months of 2024, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Corporate profits for financial firms increased 5.19% year over year and 14.18% quarter over quarter during the first quarter of 2024, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
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