The world’s 500 largest mutual and cooperative insurance companies have again been ranked by the International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation (ICMIF) in the 2022 edition of its Global 500 report.

The world’s 500 largest mutual and cooperative (hereafter referred to as “mutual”) insurance companies, in terms of premium revenue (referred to in the report as the Global 500), collectively wrote USD 1,259 billion in insurance premiums in 2020. Aggregate premiums of Global 500 companies grew in 2020 by 0.5% from the previous year (USD 1,252 billion). In comparison, the total global insurance market reported a negligible 0.04% growth between 2019 and 2020.

In terms of lines of business, there was stronger growth in non-life premiums, increasing 2.7% to USD 625 billion in 2020 (from USD 609 billion in 2019). Life business of Global 500 companies decreased (-1.5%) in 2020, falling to USD 633 billion from USD 643 billion in 2019.

In this year’s Global 500, US mutual insurer State Farm (USA) was again ranked as the largest mutual/cooperative insurer in the world. Japanese cooperative insurer Zenkyoren was ranked as the largest ICMIF member (and third overall) in the Global 500 rankings.

A record number of ICMIF members – 73 organisations from 29 countries – were featured in the Global 500 rankings for 2022. As well as Zenkyoren, Achmea (Netherlands); R+V Versicherung (Germany); Unipol (Italy); and Aéma Groupe (France) were all ranked amongst the largest 25 mutual/cooperative insurers.

There were 33 ICMIF members that reported premium levels in excess of USD 1 billion. Due to recent mergers and amalgamations of mutual businesses, two ICMIF members saw the greatest rise in their Global 500 rankings: Aéma Groupe moved from 37th in the previous year’s rankings to 22nd this year; and Beneva (Canada) rose from 99th to 64th in 2022.