Insurance companies provide a major source of California's investment capital by means of premium payments collected from policyholders. Life insurance companies also invest heavily in real estate; in 2001, life insurance firms owned $5,101.7 billion in real estate, and held an estimated $41.8 billion in mortgage debt on California properties.
In 2001 there were 10.3 million ordinary life insurance policies in force with a total value of $1,188 billion; total value for all categories of life insurance (ordinary, group, industrial, and credit) was $1,870 billion. Death benefits paid that year totaled $4.4 billion.
In 2003 there were 33 life and health and 159 property and casualty companies domiciled in California. Property and casualty insurers wrote premiums amounting to $44.09 billion in 2001. That year, there were 322,698 flood insurance policies in force in the state, with a total value of $50.3 million. Also in 2001, there were $543.1 million in direct premiums in earthquake insurance written, representing 53% of the US total.