Soaring insurance premiums, fewer disasters, and massive investment income fuel high industry profits and CEO pay.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Patrick Davis, pdavis@citizen.org
Property and casualty insurance companies raked in massive profits in 2025, driven by underwriting income and profits from investments, according to an analysis of new data released today by Public Citizen and Revolving Door Project.
The analysis, based on recently released data in the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ annual report, found that underwriting income—what insurers collect in premiums above what they pay out in claims and operating costs—surged to $68.7 billion in 2025, jumping by more than $43 billion from 2024. Additionally, the industry raked in more than $111 billion from investments, more than double what it earned in 2016.
Additionally, the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry, which includes homeowners and personal auto as well as commercial liability products, saw its policyholders’ surplus hit $1.27 trillion, setting a new all-time high for the financial cushion that an insurance company keeps on hand to ensure it can pay claims.
“Insurance companies continue to hike rates for consumers despite massive profits, raising serious questions,” said Mekedas Belayneh, researcher with Public Citizen’s Climate Program. “The industry’s repeated claims of financial distress, used to justify higher rates and weaken consumer protections, are impossible to square with its record profits in recent years. Insurers are profiting from both the causes and consequences of climate change while consumers are left paying higher premiums, receiving less coverage, and facing shrinking claims payouts. This is a system that works for the insurance industry’s bottom line only.”
As profits soared, so too has pay for CEOs of insurance providers. CEOs at the ten largest insurers collectively took home more than $134 million in 2024, a 27% increase in salary and bonuses from the year before. Last year, Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg pulled in $33 million, up $3 million from 2024. Allstate CEO Tom Wilson was paid over $45 million.
“We cannot afford to continue on our current path, where insurance CEOs cry poverty from their private jets while insurance consumers, saddled with skyrocketing costs, contend with the threat of losing their homes to foreclosure,” said Kenny Stancil, deputy research director with Revolving Door Project and co-author of the report. “The property insurance industry asserts that it is losing money all over the country, but in reality insurers are fleecing consumers nationwide. Adding insult to injury, insurers are raking in huge profits as they prop up fossil fuels—the main source of mounting climate chaos.”
“The property insurance industry’s direct loss ratios have been declining for decades, meaning that insurance companies are collecting more dollars in premiums and paying out fewer of those dollars in claims,” said Alex Martin, climate finance policy director at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. “When people are spending significantly more on home insurance than ever before, climate change is only getting worse, and insurers are canceling coverage, this corporate waste and profiteering cannot stand.”
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