The first life insurers to report earnings for the first quarter are posting similar group life benefits ratio figures: The ratios are much lower than they were in the first quarter of 2022 — but still noticeably higher than in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Hartford, MetLife, Prudential Financial, Unum and Voya are large group life providers that have already released their first-quarter results, with the group life benefits ratios presented in a similar format.
The average group life benefits ratio at the five insurers was 86% in the latest quarter, up from 81% in the first quarter of 2019.
For a look at the companies' numbers, see the table below.
What It Means
The total death rate for working-age people may still be high enough to push up life insurance prices, and to add uncertainty to the life expectancy projections behind annuity prices and retirement planning efforts.
The Numbers
The five big group life insurers use different terms to describe their group life benefits ratios. The ratios reflect deaths from all causes, not just from COVID-19.
The insurers have not put the same kinds of figures for individual life insurance in their quarterly earnings releases or in the other quarterly filings now available in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Edgar filing database.
Although the insurers' average group life benefits ratio is about 5 percentage points higher than it was before the pandemic came to light in early 2020, the current numbers look much better than in the first quarter of 2022, when a catastrophic wave filled urgent care clinics and hospitals.
