264
Opinion of the Court
from insurance, in short, is at least reasonable. See Comptroller's Letter 44a. A key feature of insurance is that it indemnifies loss. See Black's Law Dictionary 802 (6th ed. 1990) (first definition of insurance is "contract whereby, for a stipulated consideration, one party undertakes to compensate the other for loss on a specified subject by specified perils"). As the Comptroller observes, annuities serve an important investment purpose and are functionally similar to other investments that banks typically sell. See supra, at 259-260. And though fixed annuities more closely resemble insurance than do variable annuities, fixed annuities too have significant investment features and are functionally similar to debt instruments. Moreover, mindful that fixed annuities are often packaged with variable annuities, the Comptroller reasonably chose to classify the two together.
* * *
We respect as reasonable the Comptroller's conclusion that brokerage of annuities is an "incidental powe[r] . . . necessary to carry on the business of banking." We further defer to the Comptroller's reasonable determination that 12 U. S. C. § 92 is not implicated because annuities are not insurance within the meaning of that section. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is
Reversed.
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