We’ve reported on operational cash flow among life insurers in the past and note that we hold this metric in high regard for a multitude of reasons.
Our philosophy is that operational cash flow shows us true profitability of a life insurance company, especially among whole life focused insurers. Why is that? Well, it's primarily because life insurers have a unique income reducing option at their disposal with policyholder dividends.
Investment income is a huge profit driver for life insurance companies.
We've spent a lot of time analyzing and reporting on overall investment yield trends for life insurance companies, but that analysis only compares the raw yield insurers achieve on their managed asset pool. It's possible that a declining yield simple indicates a de-risking strategy.
Investment income is not necessarily declining and the insurer is under no real financial trouble. In fact, we've made this argument several times when discussing these trends and others.
So if we instead look at
