4 BULLETIN 1047, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
LOANS BY LIFE INSURANCE COMPANIES. 
The figures presented for life insurance companies are based on 
replies received from 216 companies out of a total number of 266. 
The 216 companies reporting bad admitted assets of $6,539,537,868, 
representing 96.3 per cent of the assets of the total number of life 
insurance companies as reported in the Insurance Yearbook of 1920. 
Only 29 out of the 216 companies reported no farm mortgage loans. 
Assuming the farm mortgages held by the 50 companies not report- 
ing to be the same percentage of their assets as that obtained 
for reporting companies, the total amount of farm mortgage loans 
held by all life insurance companies would be $1,256,225,217, or 
approximately 842,000,000 more than was actually reported and 
shown in the table. The total real estate loans of the 216 companies 
which reported amounted to $2,024,745,646. Farm mortgage loans, 
therefore, constituted 60 per cent of all real estate loans of these 
companies and 18.6 per cent of their admitted assets. In 1914, farm 
mortgage loans constituted only 39.7 per cent of total real estate 
loans and 13.3 per cent of admitted assets, whereas in 1916 the corre- 
sponding figures were 46.6 per cent and 15.3 per cent, respectively. 1 
The increased percentage of assets invested in farm mortgages by 
life insurance companies is particularly striking in view of the fact 
that the percentage of total admitted assets represented by real 
estate loans of all kinds has decreased from 34.6 per cent in 1914 to 
34.2 per cent in 1916 * and to 31 per cent in 1920. The figures in 
the table indicate that Iowa has 23.5 per cent of all farm mortgage 
loans by fife insurance companies, which is approximately as much 
as was reported for the three next highest States, namely, Kansas, 
Missouri, and Nebraska, each of which had between ninety and a 
hundred millions of such loans. 
The larger life insurance companies as a rule maintain their own 
investment departments and employ special loan agents or corre- 
spondents. Others rely for their mortgage loans largely on banks 
and mortgage brokers. 
LOANS BY FEDERAL LAND BANK SYSTEM. 
As has been previously stated, the figures given for the land banks 
are official, and comprise those for both the Federal and joint-stock 
land banks. It will be observed that in spite of adverse conditions, 
these institutions are now carrying 10 or more per cent of the esti- 
mated farm mortgage loans in 14 States. In general, the ratios of 
land bank loans to the estimated total farm mortgage debt are 
highest in the Southern and Western States, where farm mortgage 
credit has hitherto been particularly inadequate. 
i "Life Insurance Farm Loan Investments in War Time," by Geo. T. Wight, Secretary and Manager, 
Association of Life Insurance Presidents. 
