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I think you misinterpreted what was said. A company taking an underwriting loss like that would be shut down by regulators in a heartbeat. There are very larg

by yold__ 6y ago

I think you misinterpreted what was said. A company taking an underwriting loss like that would be shut down by regulators in a heartbeat. There are very large regulatory capital requirements in life insurance, which is why you don't see new entrants into the market.

tfehring 6y ago
I'd interpret "they take a loss with premiums" in the parent comment as meaning the nominal value of expected claims exceeds the nominal value of premium. And that's very commonly the case for interest-sensitive life and annuities. It's equivalent to the expected IRR from the policyholder's perspective being greater than 0, and it would be hard to justify selling an investment-oriented product with a negative expected return. Or consider a SPIA with a return of premium guarantee. The total claim payments will always be greater than or equal to premium on a nominal basis, so investment income necessarily funds over 100% of the profit.