Life insurance sales continued their downward trend in the first quarter, affected by market volatility combined with persistent low interest rates, according to Wink's sales and market report, released this week.
Total non-variable universal life sales for the first quarter finished at $649.9 million, down 12.2% from the previous quarter and down 15.6% from the same period a year ago. Non-variable UL sales include both indexed UL and fixed UL.
Indexed life sales took the biggest hit in the January-to-March period, down 14.6% from the fourth quarter and down 0.7% year over year. Total sales amounted to $530.6 million.
"This was obviously going to be a tough quarter for life insurance sales," Sheryl Moore, Wink's chairwoman and chief executive of Moore Market Intelligence, said in a statement.
"No sooner than we have products repriced for 2017 CSO, we have to reprice for AG49. And now that AG49 is under our belts, everyone is looking at the prospects of repricing for 7702. When product development is active, sales suffer."
Fixed universal life sales continued their rapid decline, despite an 0.6% positive spike in the first quarter; fixed UL is down 50.9% compared with the same period in 2020. Sales at the end of March totaled $119.7 million.
"Seeing Universal Life hit rock bottom is a personal low for me," Moore said. "I remember developing the most competitive GUL in the life insurance industry 17 years ago; back then, I never would have foreseen that sales would get this bad."
