The Michael White-Prudential Bank Fee Income Report found insurance-brokerage-fee income rose to a record $7.7 billion, well above the $7 billion for all of 2010.
Of the 929 largest bank-holding companies, 606, or more than 65 percent, engaged in insurance-brokerage activities last year the report says.
The fee income covers banks’ dealings in insurance products and referrals of credit, life, health, property and casualty and title insurance.
Of the top-10 bank insurance brokerage fee holding companies, only Wells Fargo & Co. and BB&T Corp. have primarily P&C operations.
Fee income at Wells Fargo dropped more than 9 percent, or $163 million, to $1.6 billion. Wells Fargo is ranked second, just behind Citigroup (primarily life-insurance brokerage) with $2.14 billion.
Ranked in third place is BB&T with more than $936 million in commission and fee, an increase of less than 1 percent, or $2.7 million over 2010.
While the fee income was up for last year, the fourth-quarter result was down more than 5 percent, or $100 million, to $1.81 billion, compared to 2010’s fourth quarter.
The report says banks with over $10 billion in assets have the highest participation in insurance brokerage activity, a total of close to 90 percent. Those banks produced close to $7 billion in insurance brokerage fee income last year. That was an increase of more than 10 percent over 2010 of more than $6 billion.
Source:
propertycasualty360.com
