Profit Margin
4.8%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
Finance and Insurance ·NAICS 5241
NAICS 5241 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Insurance Carriers - Industry Benchmarks
$107,137/yr average annual pay, with 141 SBA loans on record for NAICS 5241.
- 4.8%
- Net margin
- 1.7M
- Workers employed
- $107,137/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $43M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 5241
Insurance Carriers runs a 4.8% pre-tax net margin - below the national median - across 29K establishments employing 1.7M workers.
- 4.8%
- Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
- 1.7M
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $107,137/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $43M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Insurance Carriers
Insurance Carriers sits inside Finance and Insurance at a 4.8% net margin (below the national median), $943.4B in aggregate receipts across 9,245 returns, averaging $102.0B per establishment.
28,557 establishments employ 1,653,582 workers (57.9/location) at $107,137/yr average annual pay. Florida leads employment, followed by California and Pennsylvania.
Total Receipts
$943.4B
Annual revenue (IRS SOI)
Net Income
$45.3B
Pre-tax net income
Employment
1,653,582
Total employees (Census CBP)
Avg Payroll / Employee
$107,137/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
28,557
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 109,265; establishment count decreased by 2,032. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Where each dollar of Insurance Carriers revenue goes
Workforce scale
Insurance Carriers margin vs national reference points
Insurance Carriers net margin 16.0%
Cross-industry median (5%)
p25/median/p75 = 3%/5%/8%
Business Structure Breakdown
How businesses in this industry are legally structured (IRS SOI)
C Corporation
9,245 returns 100%
Margin: 4.8% · Receipts: $943.4B
Financial Detail
- Total Tax Returns Filed
- 9,245
- Avg Receipts per Business
- $102.0B
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $177.2B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 57.9
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Direct Insurance (except Life, Health, and Medical) Carriers NAICS 52412 | N/A |
| Direct Life, Health, and Medical Insurance Carriers NAICS 52411 | N/A |
| Reinsurance Carriers NAICS 52413 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Florida | 120,965 |
| California | 116,481 |
| Pennsylvania | 90,815 |
| New York | 87,185 |
| Illinois | 82,740 |
| Ohio | 80,880 |
| Wisconsin | 56,882 |
| Massachusetts | 55,589 |
| New Jersey | 48,719 |
| North Carolina | 42,631 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
141
Total Loan Volume
$43M
Avg Loan Size
$304K
Jobs Supported
848
Program Breakdown
7(a) 135 (96%)
504 6 (4%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
17 loans in this industry
New Business Share
26.2% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 30
2021 17
2022 19
2023 23
2024 21
2025 27
2026 4
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average revenue for Insurance Carriers?
$943.4B in total annual receipts across all Insurance Carriers businesses. Average per business: $102.0B.
How profitable is Insurance Carriers?
4.8% net profit margin, below the national median.
How many businesses are in Insurance Carriers?
28,557 business establishments. Together they employ 1,653,582 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Insurance Carriers?
$107,137/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 57.9 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Insurance Carriers employment?
Florida leads with 120,965 workers. California (116,481) and Pennsylvania (90,815) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Insurance Carriers receive?
Insurance Carriers businesses received 141 SBA loans totaling $43 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $304K. These loans supported 848 jobs at origination. Most lending (96%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Comparable industry benchmarks
These links are calculated from the current national dataset. They are comparison paths, not recommendations or evidence that businesses operate alike.
How this ranks: Insurance Carriers reports a higher net margin than 47% of the 126 IRS-tracked industries at the same NAICS detail level. Its Census employment total exceeds 94% of that same 259-industry cohort. Calculated by ranking this industry's reported value against every other industry at the same NAICS digit-level, not the whole dataset: comparing a 6-digit detail industry to a 2-digit sector would mix incompatible scales.
Closest reported net margins
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported IRS pre-tax margin.
Closest workforce scale
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported Census employment.
- Home Health Care Services 1,618,759
- Religious Organizations 1,576,295
- Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services 1,736,343
Benchmarking Insurance Carriers
- Net margin: 4.8% vs sector. Browse Finance and Insurance
- 28,557 establishments, 1,653,582 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 141 SBA loans on record. SBA lending rankings
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.
Sources: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics · Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023
NAICS 5241 · Data year: 2023
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released its 2023 County Business Patterns dataset in June 2025, PlainBizBench benchmarks 2,002 U.S. industries against Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data. See our methodology for the full compilation process.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB Industry employment scale, payroll, and firm-size benchmarks · 2023
Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates profit-margin, payroll, entity-type, and SBA-lending benchmarks for this industry, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.