After a 26% dive in the first quarter compared to a year earlier, individual life insurance annualized premiums dropped 20% in the second quarter, according to a new survey.
Life sales for the first six months of the year dipped to a degree not seen since the second half of 1942, according to the U.S. Individual Life Insurance Sales report of Limra International, Windsor, Conn. Insurers recorded a drop in premium sales of 23% for the year to date–and no product line was spared, Limra says.
Variable life sales, which fluctuate with the stock market, suffered the most, down about 50% for the second quarter and 55% for the first half of the year.
Universal life sales fell 29% for the quarter and 27% for the first six months of 2009, according to Limra. It was the fourth straight quarter of double-digit declines.
