Number of New U.S. Individual Life Policies Sold Rises: LIMRA

A LIMRA Executive's Perspective

Elaine Tumicki, a corporate vice president LIMRA, said in a comment on the new survey results that, in the fourth quarter of 2019, a pending shift to new mortality tables and new reserving rules led to a big surge in sales.

"As a result, LIMRA projected overall premium to normalize in 2020 even before the pandemic," Tumicki said.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, life insurers have been shifting to more use of simplified underwriting and online distribution systems, and that shift has favored sales of term life and whole life products, Tumicki said.

The Age Factor

An organization that helps life insurers share some underwriting data, MIB Group Inc., has reported that the number of U.S. individual life insurance applications processed in the fourth quarter increased 4% between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the fourth quarter of 2020.

MIB found that life application activity was much stronger for applicants under age 60 than for older applicants. Younger people typically pay less for life insurance than older people do.

LIMRA may have recorded an increase in the amount of coverage sold, along with a sharp drop in total new annualized premiums, because the average age of the purchasers is falling.

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