U.S. consumers may be less likely to fear the possibility that life insurance companies will tank the economy than they are to fear that six other types of financial services companies will cause disruption.
Analysts at Prudential Financial Inc. have published data supporting that possibility in a summary of results from a recent online survey of 2,058 employed U.S. adults ages 18 and older.
Prudential asked survey participants whether life insurers or six other types of financial services companies pose "a lot of risk" to the economy.
The other six types of companies were credit reporting agencies, banks, mortgage brokers, online trading platforms, hedge funds and private equity funds, and credit card companies.
The participants rated credit card companies as the companies most likely to hurt the economy: about 27% of the participants said credit card companies post a lot of risk to the economy.