Big quarter for bank insurance brokerages

First-quarter earnings from bank insurance brokerage hit $1.07 billion, the second highest level ever, according to the Michael White-Symetra Bank Fee Income Report. That’s a gain of 8.6% from $993.3 million for the first quarter of 2007, the report found. The first-quarter earnings were only $4.4 million shy of the highest level recorded, $1.08 billion in the third quarter of 2006. Michael White Associates LLC of Radnor, Pa., sponsored by Symetra Financial Corp. of Bellevue, Wash., compiled the data from 7,663 commercial and FDIC-supervised savings banks. Citibank N.A. of New York came in first with $368 million in insurance brokerage earnings as of March 31, a 38.35% gain from the previous year. Coming in a distant second, Branch Banking and Trust Corp. (better known as BB&T) of Winston-Salem, N.C., earned $198.9 million in insurance brokerage fees, up 2.84%. Wilmington, Del.-based Fla. Card Services NA was in third place with $69.6 million in fees, up 35.63%. Not all of the news was good, though: Bank of America NA of Charlotte, N.C., saw a massive fall in insurance brokerage fees, earning only $32.5 million in the first quarter. That’s a 28.52% decline from the previous year. Bank insurance brokerage fees include commissions and fees earned by a bank from product sales and insurance referrals. The earnings are exclusive of income from annuity sales and servicing.