The insurance industry is well-represented in the latest Forbes Global 2000 list, which ranks 2,000 of the world's largest public companies according to a composite score that takes into account the revenues, profits, assets, and market value of each company. Among them, Ping An is the largest insurance carrier in the world. The Chinese firm saw an increase of almost 5% in sales and an increase of more than 20% in profits. MetLife also continued its growth compared to last year, despite falling in the rankings.
The insurer serves about 100 million customers in 40 countries around the world and offers life, medical, dental, accident and health and credit insurance products for individuals and groups. Cigna has the sixth highest market value among all the insurance companies on the list. However, its overall ranking dropped 24 places, costing the company fourth place among the major insurance companies, which it ranked last year. The firm offers health, pharmacy, dental, supplement insurance and Medicare plans to individuals, families and groups. Market capitalization is a quick way to determine the value of a company in the eyes of investors. Companies with large market capitalizations are usually established conservative investments that are likely to experience consistent growth and offer the least risk.
Mid-cap companies are also established but have high growth potential. Small cap companies are usually new companies with high growth potential and represent the greatest risk because they are more vulnerable to economic downturns than more established large and mid-cap companies. Not all insurance companies are listed on the stock market. In fact, many insurers are structured as mutual societies, in which the policyholders of the participating policies are essentially partial owners of the company. American Family Insurance is the largest mutual insurance company in the U.
S. UU. It is useful to differentiate between the type of insurance or line that is being considered when considering larger insurance companies. Property and accident insurers issue policies that cover properties such as real estate, homes, cars, and other vehicles. They also write policies about the liabilities they may incur due to accident or negligence related to those properties to defray the cost of lawsuits or medical damages resulting from such incidents.
Life insurance companies undertake to pay a lump sum benefit in the event of the death of the insured person. Health insurance companies offer policies to cover all or part of the policyholder's medical and health costs. Policies can be purchased individually or through an employer. Technically, the United States government is the largest provider of health insurance in the United States through Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid programs administered by individual states. Investing in insurance companies may be a safe option for some investors as they are founded to deal with risk which can ultimately reduce risks associated with investing in them. Health insurance has potential to grow significantly compared to other types of insurance companies. The five largest homeowners insurance companies in the U.
UU. They are State Farm, Allstate, USAA, Liberty Mutual and Farmers. Together they hold more than 45% of homeowners insurance market share. The five largest insurance companies in Canada are Manulife Financial Corporation, Great-West Lifeco, Desjardins, Sun Life Financial and Fairfax Financial. Manulife is Canada's largest insurance company employing more than 35,000 employees and serving more than 30 million customers.
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