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Kansas City Life profit rises, but litigation over rate deductions persists
The insurer’s reported turnaround benefited from a year-ago $45 million legal settlement accrual, while brokers are still weighing uncertainty tied to claims involving about 88,000 policies.
Kansas City Life Insurance Company posted a 14% increase in underlying second-quarter profit, helped by higher investment revenue, but an unresolved legal overhang remains the issue brokers say matters more than the quarterly rebound, according to Insurance Business.
For the three months ended June 30, 2026, Kansas City Life reported net income of $7.8 million, or $0.80 per share, versus a net loss of $28.7 million, or $2.96 per share, a year earlier. The year-ago period included a $45 million legal settlement accrual, which drove the dramatic swing from loss to profit on a reported basis.
Excluding that 2025 charge, the outlet says the company would have earned $6.8 million in the second quarter of 2025, putting the 2026 increase on a more modest $1 million, or 14%, lift. The underlying gain reflected a $3.5 million rise in investment revenue, partly offset by a $2.6 million, or 4%, increase in policyholder benefits.
Insurance Business adds that the legal charge related to a nationwide settlement over cost-of-insurance rates applied to certain universal life and variable universal life policies, covering claims involving about 88,000 policies and several class-action cases. The insurer denied the allegations and did not admit wrongdoing, but the outlet notes that an accrual is an estimate, so cash costs could ultimately run higher and reverse some of the improvement in a future period.