Guardian and Lafayette Life Set 2021 Dividends

The New York-based company expects to pay about $1.05 billion in dividends to individual life insurance policyholders this year.

The board of Lafayette Life, a subsidiary of Cincinnati-based Western & Southern Financial Group, is holding that company's dividend interest rate at 5.2% for all dividend-paying policies written after June 15, 2005.

Lafayette Life expects to pay a total of $68 million in dividends to 2021 policyholders.

Lafayette Life has paid dividends to policyholders for 115 years. The 2021 round of dividends will be the 116th.

Here's what other mutual life insurers have said about their 2021 dividend rates:

• Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. expects to cut its dividend rate to 6.2%, from 6.4% for 2020, and to hold the total dividend payout steady at about $1.7 billion.
• New York Life Insurance Co. expects to cut its dividend payout to $1.8 billion, from $1.9 billion.
• Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. expects to hold its dividend rate steady, at 5%, and to pay $6.2 billion in dividends, up from $6 billion in 2020.
• Ohio National expects to cut its dividend rate to 4.7% for open block policies, from 5.2%, and to 4%, from 4.5% for closed block policies.
• Security Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York  expects to hold its dividend scale steady. It did not disclose the dividend rate.

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