THEINSURANCEINDUSTRYINCENTRALWISCONSIN.pdfVIP

THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY IN CENTRAL WISCONSIN Thomas J. Ryan Assistant Professor of Business Division of Business Economics University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Introduction Insurance is a business that dates back to ancient times. Risk sharing schemes originally devised by Chinese merchants, Phoenician traders, and early underwriters at Lloyds of London arrived in this country with the pioneers. In Wisconsin the insurance business dates back to the mid 1800s and has developed into one of the states major economic activities. Some of Wisconsins domestic insurers, that is companies incorporated in the state of Wisconsin, were established prior to the Civil War. The insurance industry is usually evaluated in terms of premiums written and earned, loss ratios and benefits paid, capital surplus, and assets. Statistics are often quoted with reckless abandon. Such figures will be presented only to make a point or support a particular conclusion. Let us look briefly at the impact of the insurance industry, which employs over 2 million people nationally. In 1985 the assets of life, property and casualty insurance companies exceeded one trillion dollars. In that same year Wisconsin domiciled insurers held assets totaling $40.9 billion or 3.9 percent of the total. Although this report will deal only with the private insurance sector, the impact of government insurers (including social security, federal retirement and disability insurance, workers compensation, loan guarantee insurance, etc.) should be noted. While private insurers of all types had premium income of $339.2 billion in 1984, government insurers had an estimated premium income of $272.3 billion for that same year - 44.6 percent of the total. The ratio of all insurance revenues to disposable personal income of $2,577 billion in 1984 was 23.7 per