By Ross Buchmueller, president and chief executive officer, PURE Risk Management LLC

Like many in the insurance industry, I enjoy reading the views of insurance company executives in their annual letters to shareholders (or policyholders, in the case of mutual insurers). This year, as I read the letters of some of the nation's largest and best-known insurers, I was struck by the enormous challenge of aligning the interests of insurance policyholders with those of shareholders.

In his annual letter, the CEO of a well-known policyholder-owned insurance and financial services company writes: "We gave back $1.2 billion to members in distributions, dividends, and bank rebates and rewards...members saved an estimated $110 million in mortgage interest by refinancing their homes with us... we helped members continue to pay on more than 95,000 credit and loan accounts by adjusting their payment plans... members saved an average of $461" on auto insurance." As for the bottom line, he writes: "We grew our net worth by 17 percent to a record $17 billion in 2009."