How Financially Sound Are Your BOLI Investments?

Our recent study of Bank Owned Life Insurance (BOLI) investments by the largest 150 U.S. banks showed that the average exposure to this asset class was 1.5% of total assets and 14% of common equity. While BOLI is by no means a sizeable asset for most banks, 10% of banks had exposure that ranged from 23% to 32% of total bank common equity – a potentially painful hit to capital should this investment not perform as expected.