By now most U.S. cities have seen their share of Occupy protestors; but if you're an insurance agent, you're probably less interested in the 99 percent as you are in the 1 percent. After all, high-net worth individuals can be a great target for an agency to specialize in (we'll be taking a more in-depth look at writing affluent personal lines buyers in the October AA&B).

But although you may believe these wealthy buyers are more concerned about the state of their polo ponies than the nuts-and-bolts insurance purchases of the rest of us, the recent Consumer Expenditure Survey put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics might come as a surprise.

The BLS finds that affluents are the "spending engine" driving today's economy. And unlike the ongoing taxation discussions in Washington, there's no quibbling over how to define "affluent." According to the study, they're the 58.6 million adults living in households with at least $100,000 in annual household income. And although that number doesn't put you in a league with Bill Gates and Co., it's impressive considering that the median U.S. household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Affluents account for roughly 60 percent of all household income earned in the U.S., and hold roughly 70 percent of the privately held wealth in the U.S.