Reply #97: many possible reasons

[Spike89]

The most likely is that your non-profit is willing to cover slightly more risky groups than the for-profit carriers. In other words, it may be part of their mission to provide affordable coverage trapeze artists and to subsidize that mission, they need to "profit" in other areas. I work for a non-profit (not insurance related) and that is exactly how we operate...we sell things (such as books) at the same prices as the for profit publishers, we just take the profits and spend them on things that we call "high mission".

The other, more complicated answer is that a non-profit often isn't as efficient as it should be...leadership isn't generally held as accountable as for profit management for maximizing returns.