INSURANCE INDUSTRY GROWING BUSINESS TODAY

"If you took all the men and women employed in the U.S. insurance industry and laid them head-to-toe, starting on New York's William Street, they would stretch up the West Side Highway, over the George Washington bridge into New Jersey, down the New Jersey Turnpike to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, across Pennsylvania to Ohio, along Interstate 80 past Chicago, Des Moines, Lincoln, Neb., past Cheyenne, Wyo., to Salt Lake City, Utah, and a little beyond."

This is the way one writer described the enormity of the U.S. insurance industry a decade ago.

Insurance is big business.

Ten years ago the $200 billion in annual premiums amounted to $900 for every living American. Those totals have more than doubled in the 1990s.

Insurance now represents one of the largest industries in the nation, with more than 2.1 million workers.

Although many of the jobs are in very large companies, others are in small agencies throughout the country. More than 4,800 insurance companies offer insurance protection of all kinds nationally.

The Missouri Department of Insurance reported there are 1,698 insurance companies licensed in Missouri.

The department has regulatory authority over 16,255 licensed insurance agencies, 68,444 agents and 8,103 brokers in the state, said Randy McConnell, a press relations spokesman for the Department of Insurance. McConnell said that in 1992 the insurance industry in Missouri wrote in excess of $13 billion in premiums.

The insurance industry is actually two industries -- life insurance companies, which sell life and health policies; and property-casualty, which sells everything else.

Employment in the industry is expected to grow at an average pace during the 1990s, with good outlooks for agents and brokers.

The need for new brokers depends on the volume of insurance sales and growing demand for long-term health-care and pension benefits for the increasing number of retirees, who are expected to spur sales, said Robert L. Adams, who prepared the Adams Job Almanac for 1994.

Adams said demand for property-casualty insurance has grown as the value of homes and automobiles have increased. Demand for property-casualty insurance has also risen as people have purchased more advanced and expensive technological products such as home computers and home video systems.

Thus far life insurance carriers have been able to meet the growing product demand with only a small increase in the workforce. Computers have improved productivity as routine tasks formerly done by clerks are now automated.

Although the life insurance industry could go through rapid change over the next few years, the long-term prospects for life insurance companies and their annuity products are good.

Demand will be determined by income growth, population changes and home ownership. Health insurance could face some harsh problems in coming years. The growth of private health insurance, especially indemnity insurance, could be slowed by employer self-insurance, managed-care services and other new options.

The debate over health-care reform throws the future of the entire health insurance industry into question. The government may set financial standards for states to follow or it may regulate the industry itself.

"Currently, the insurance industry is regulated by states," said a spokesman for the local chapter of the National Association of Life Underwriters. "The position of the national association is that there is a great deal in the federal programs that we cannot support."

Conrad Meier, Missouri chairman of the Health Insurance Committee of the Missouri Association of Health Insurance Agents, recently presented the AHIA's position concerning Insurance reform.

"The Heatlh Security Act eliminates agents, eliminates consumer choice and eliminates competition," said Meier. "It creates health insurance monopolies and regulated health-care alliances. As it exists now, there is a great deal we cannot support."

Clearly, these issues could change the nature of competition in the industry, forcing businesses to change their business practices.

"We think good-old competition is better than the feds governing the industry," said one local insurance executive.