National Association Of Mutual Insurance Companies

A mutual insurance company is an insurance company that is people centric, jointly owned and democratically controlled by its policyholders. It is a form of consumers' co-operative that as of 2013 accounted for 27.3% of the global insurance market helping protect 915 million policy holders globally. From a financial perspective, surpluses that are experienced by the mutual are either retained by the company for operational needs, shared among policy holders in the form of dividend distributions or reduced future premium. Mutual insurance differs from a stock-based or investor-owned insurance company which is owned by investors who have purchased company stock. Profits (rather than surpluses) in a stock company are either retained by the company or distributed to the investors without any guaranteed benefits to the policyholders. via Wikipedia ↗