Insurance companies in Minnesota: high-paying health, life and benefits operations, regulated by Commerce

This page is for Minnesotans checking an insurer or agent, for job seekers sizing up the state's insurance employers, and for sellers whose customers are insurers, administrators or agencies here. It describes the market and the official records. It doesn't recommend carriers.

Minnesota's insurance count

County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 524 (Insurance Carriers and Related Activities), Minnesota:

Grouped, the classes give 3,661 small establishments (under 20), 194 mid-sized (20 to 99) and 103 large (100 or more). One company can run many establishments, and owners without employees are missing from the count. NAICS 524 and subcodes, 2017 basis.

What Minnesota's insurers do

From our tabulation of the state file:

Two things stand out. Health and life insurers account for 34,220 of the 45,743 carrier jobs. And the related-services group pays almost as much as carriers: besides the 16,007 agency employees, 21,851 people (our subtraction) work in third-party administration, claims and other insurance services. NAICS 2022 places pharmacy benefit management in the third-party administration code, so benefits and pharmacy administration count here rather than under carriers. The administrators' own employee total is flagged as high-noise, so we don't report it.

Minnesota ranks 19th for carrier establishments but 15th for carrier employment, and 13th for agency and related establishments but 10th for their employment: fewer, larger sites than most states.

Insurers with a Minnesota base

From SEC EDGAR, checked in each company's 10-K for 2025:

UnitedHealth describes itself as a health care and well-being company; for how it compares with other health insurers, see the largest health insurance companies. Travelers' EDGAR business address is St. Paul, but its 10-K lists New York as its head office. Insurers based in Minnesota that aren't publicly listed don't file with the SEC; for the national picture, see the largest insurance companies in the US.

Who regulates insurance in Minnesota

Minnesota has no stand-alone insurance department. Minnesota Statutes section 60A.02 defines the "commissioner" in the insurance code as the commissioner of commerce, and section 60A.03 says the commissioner of commerce shall enforce all the provisions of the laws of this state relating to insurance. In practice:

1. Check the licence of a company or agent with the Minnesota Department of Commerce before you buy.
2. Read the complaint record in the NAIC's Consumer Insurance Search, which reports complaints, licences and financial health for each insurer.
3. Ask who carries the risk. If you buy through an agency, get the insurer's legal name from the quote; that's the company to check.

Working in Minnesota insurance

Carriers paid an average of $120,828 in 2023; agencies, $94,634. The 18 establishments with 1,000 or more employees, more than in Georgia or North Carolina, concentrate hiring at a handful of large employers, and health and life insurers alone employ 34,220 people. For the Twin Cities employer base, Greater MSP, the regional economic development organization, is the starting point.

Selling to Minnesota insurers

Independent agencies meet through Big I Minnesota, which keeps an agency directory, and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce covers the wider business base.

Worked example: accessibility testing for member portals

Illustrative example. The firm, prices and rates are invented; the counts come from the Census table above.

North Star Access (northstaraccess.example) tests health and life insurers' member websites and apps for accessibility.

1. List: 105 health and 132 life insurer establishments. Assume they belong to about 50 companies with member portals run from Minnesota.
2. Arithmetic: reaching a digital or compliance leader at 60% gives 30 conversations. If 15% commission an audit, that's 5 audits at $35,000, or $175,000, and remediation retests follow.
3. Plan for procurement: at the largest sites, expect vendor risk and security reviews before any testing account is created.

Mapping who owns digital accessibility at each insurer is the slow part; Bebop researches each account in a list and suggests the person to contact.

Subject: Accessibility of [company]'s member portal

Hi [first name],

Insurers tell us accessibility issues in member portals usually surface as complaints first and audits second.

We test your portal and app against current accessibility guidelines with assistive-technology users and give your developers a fix list ranked by member impact.

Would a free scan of your claims or enrollment flow be useful?

[Your name]

Next step: compare another health-insurer market in insurance companies in Louisville, or the state's wider economy in companies in Minnesota.