Adjusted Surplus

  

Just like banking requirements, insurance companies have to keep a certain amount of money in reserves in case they have a multi-hurricane year, for example, with a lot of payouts. Adjusted surplus is basically what’s left over when you subtract their assets (cash and accounts receivable, etc.) from their liabilities (accounts payable, etc.)

The surplus grows from yearly operating profits and gains from its investments, where the money is then put into the reserves account. So when a hurricane like Katrina in New Orleans hits with billions of dollars of claims to be paid, the surplus is going to take a dive. Insurance companies will most likely raise premiums the following year in order to build up the reserves again. The higher the adjusted surplus, the better the financial health of the company.

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Finance: What is a Dividend?1777 Views

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Finance a la shmoop what is a dividend? well let's start with how [Bird flying with a bag]

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dividends came to be well dividends are the result of a great and awesome quote

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problem unquote.. what happened to corporations is they grew and became

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dominant in their respective industries they retained so much cash profit even [man as a giant corporation crushing city buildings]

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after building factories digging mines and smelting whatever they smelted well

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that they couldn't figure out what to do with the cash so under a lot of [man with an open briefcase full of cash]

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shareholder pressure and that is the common shareholders would threaten to

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fire the Board of Directors, the fat and cash happy corporations just to begin to [common shareholders hitting the board of directors]

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give it back to shareholders their owners who were in turn made happy by

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that event and in many cases on the announcement of an increased dividend [share prices increasing and man shouts into a speaker]

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policy share prices went up because of that whole investor happiness thing

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there's a good structural reason for dividends to exist however they force [men bricklaying]

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companies to be disciplined in their spending that is if companies aren't

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disciplined, they don't have the money to pay the dividend and well when that

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happens to a company basically everyone gets fired in most public companies [Donald Trump firing an employee]

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dividends are viewed as a long-term commitment not as like a one-time thing

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without fail and many families relied on that dividend to make ends meet in the [family together eating dinner]

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modern era companies in financial stress have even borrowed money just to make

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sure they can pay their dividends to investors why well they believe that

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when they get through the tough times they'll return to that massive [man running down a road sign posted under tough times]

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profitability and they'll have a track record of continuing to pay dividends [oil machine working as cash piles up]

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and that love is worth taking out a loan to pay a dividend the other big thing to

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consider is that dividends are a very meaningful part of investment returns [dividends arrow pointing to investment returns]

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period company's continued to pay their dividends and for the decade the [money going into a shareholders window]

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you've done nothing other than collect your six percent a year in dividends [Man collecting a 6% dividends]

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well you would have been just fine you would have almost doubled your

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investment money this way ignoring taxes from about nineteen sixty eight to [Man doubling his investment money from 1968-1980]

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