The balance sheets of life and non-life insurance companies reflect the importance of technical (insurance underwriting) risks for insurance firms. Life insurance companies typically have the greater part of their liabilities taken up by technical provisions, in some jurisdictions more than 80 percent. This reflects the amount that the firm is setting aside to pay potential claims on the policies that it has written. Correspondingly, more than 90 percent of the assets of life insurance companies comprise the investment portfolio held to support these liabilities. The dominant risks for a life insurance company are whether its calculations of the necessary.
