Americans are nervous this year — and life insurance could be one part of the answer.
LIMRA and Life Happens are using new data, from their 12th annual Insurance Barometer Study, to make the case that owning life insurance increases consumer confidence, and that improved marketing will increase consumer life insurance ownership.
The groups asked U.S. consumers whether they would be financially secure if their family's primary wage-earner were to die unexpectedly.
Only 47% of the survey participants without any life insurance said they would be financially secure.
The share predicting they would be financially secure increased to 68% for survey participants with some kind of life insurance, and to 78% for participants with both individual life insurance and employment-related life insurance.
LIMRA and Life Happens also found a strong correlation between life insurance awareness and life ownership.
Just 17% of the survey participants who said they had little knowledge about life insurance reported having life insurance.
About 62% of the participants who described themselves as being very or extremely knowledgeable about life insurance said they had it.
What It Means
Financial and retirement advisors can help clients use permanent life insurance to accomplish many different complicated planning objectives, including efforts to minimize the impact of required minimum distributions and federal income taxes on the retirement plans of the affluent.
But this is also a time when COVID-19 and other events have increased stress among consumers.
The approach LIMRA and Life Happens is taking might be a sign that even financial services survey designers are now thinking of life insurance first as chicken soup for weary souls.
Faisa Stafford, Life Happens' CEO, said in a comment, included in a survey results announcement, that she believes the impact of the COVID-19 is still in many consumers' thoughts.
"Life insurance is the foundation of any strong financial plan, and our results show it provides people with a sense of security that many are looking for, especially after the last two years," Stafford said.
