Farm-Mortgage Loans Held by Life Insurance Companies

Excerpts: An important source of mortgage credit for farmers is the accumulated life insurance savings of the American people. During the decade since the end of World War II, total assets of life insurance companies have more than doubled while farm-mortgage holdings have increased from $891 million to $2, 272 million. Although these holdings make up only a small part (2. 5 percent) of the total assets of life insurance companies, they provide a profitable investment for policyholders' funds. Life insurance companies are now the most important institutional lenders in the farm-mortgage field. On January 1, 1956, the outstanding farm-mortgage debt held by all lenders totaled $8, 962 million (table 1). Of this total, 25 percent was held by life insurance companies as compared with 17 percent held by the Federal land banks and 15 percent held by commercial and savings banks (fig. 1). Basic information for this study was obtained from 17 life insurance companies on farm-mortgage loans outstanding June 30, 1956. These companies held 87 percent of the amount of farm-mortgage debt held by all life insurance companies on January 1, 1956.