Money on the Rise; Banking on Insurance: Consumers are buying record amounts of insurance from...

Last year set a record for banks selling insurance. Final tallies aren't in yet, but bank annuity premiums in the first 10 months of 2002 have already surpassed 2001's record totals. It looks like there'll be about a 25 percent increase in total annuity premiums from 2001 to 2002.

There was a 27 percent increase in the banking sector's insurance fee income from the first half of 2001 to the first half of 2002, according to data in the report tallied from a little less than half of U.S. banks. Banks earned $1.79 billion in insurance commissions and fee income in the