Wells Fargo overtook Citigroup Inc. in 2012 to lead all banks ininsurance brokerage fee income, according to a recent report, butoverall insurance brokerage fee income for banks dropped 20 percentfor the year.

The “Insurance Fee Income Report” by Michael White Associatessays insurance brokerage fee income dropped fell to $6 billion forthe year.

Citibank Inc. and Bank of America Corp. were responsible for themajority of the fee losses. with a combined drop of over $1.5billion in insurance brokerage income between 2011 and 2012.

But despite the income drop from a select number of banks,Robert Seda, president of Dowling Hales, a sponsor of the report,says many bank-holding companies that built or acquiredinsurance-brokerage firms experienced double-digit increases inbrokerage income “signaling an improvement in the financial healthof their agencies, specifically those agencies focused” in theP&C sector.

Wells Fargo's brokerage-fee income dropped 4 percent on ayear-to-year basis to $1.56 million, but generated enough income tograb the top spot among banks. Taking second place was BB&TCorp., which reported a 33 percent increase in fee income to $1.25million. Citigroup dropped to third, with its fee income falling 45percent to $1.17 billion.

Rounding out the top 12:

• American Express Co.

• Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

• Regions Financial Corp.

• Morgan Stanley

• BancorpSouth Inc.

• Discover Financial Services

• First Command Financial Services

• First Niagara Financial Group

• Huntington Bancshares Inc.

The report examines data from all 7,083 commercial banks,savings banks and savings associations and 1,053 large top-tierbank holding companies and thrift holding companies. Bank holdingcompanies of over $10 billion in assets have the highestparticipation in insurance-brokerage activities at 80 percent.These banks produced $5.29 billion in insurance fee income in 2012,down 24 percent from in 2011.