Costs are the resources that must be sacrificed to achieve a certain goal. Under the concept of cost management, we mean cost control and cost reduction, and the goal of cost management is to achieve the long-term benefit from the resulting cost. Insurance is the transfer of risk from insurers to insurers, who accepts to compensate for incidental damages to those in which they are incurred and to distribute them to all members of the risk community. As far as insurance costs are concerned, the basic cost categories are the cost of obtaining, management costs, financial investment costs and other insurance technical expenses. The subject of this paper is an accounting analysis of the costs specific to the insurance business that is significant for business management. To that purpose, the characteristics of various types of operating costs were presented and in the practical part of the work, attention was paid to the costs specific to the insurance business. The aim of this paper is to explain the role and importance of costs in business, and on a practical example of insurance companies to show specific types of costs related to this business. In the practical part of the paper, an analysis of costs in Croatia insurance, Euroherc and Adriatic insurance was carried out using horizontal and vertical analysis procedures. Costs were observed over the years, their change, and share of individual cost in total costs. After the analysis, the structure of the main categories of costs is shown in all three observed companies, where it is apparent that the acquisition costs occupy the largest share in total costs, then administrative costs, and other operating expenses and financial expenses have small shares in total costs.