Insurance brokerage fee income at banks hit $3.05 billion for the third quarter of 2009, the highest level in the last 5 quarters, according to the data compiled by Michael White Associates LLC.
Through the first 3 quarters of 2009, insurance brokerage fee income at bank holding companies totaled $9.1 billion, down 0.7 percent from the year-ago period.
Fee income includes commissions and other fees bank-holding companies or subsidiaries earn from insurance product sales, as well as referrals for credit, life, health, property-casualty and title insurance.
The Prudential Insurance Co. of America's individual life insurance business sponsored the study, which is based on data from 7,319 commercial and FDIC-supervised savings banks and 922 top-tier bank holding companies.
Wells Fargo & Co. led the pack with $1.38 billion in year-to-date insurance brokerage fee income through the third quarter, up 5.34 percent from the first nine months of 2008.
Citigroup Inc. came in second, with insurance brokerage fee income of $771 million for the first 3 quarters of last year, down 19.27 percent from the year-ago period. BB&T Corp. rounded out the top 3, reporting $699.9 million in insurance brokerage fee income for the first three quarters in 2009, reflecting an 11.8 percent gain from the year-ago period.
