Life & Health Roundtable Recap
On June 22, Chris Rzany moderated the Life & Health Roundtable and shared results of the LIMRA 2023 Insurance Barometer. The annual study surveyed more than 8,000 people aged 18 to 75, including both owners and non-owners of life insurance. Roundtable attendees discussed the findings, including the reasons people say they should own life insurance as well as the reasons they say they don’t own it. According to the study, approximately 40% of American consumers say they need or need more life insurance, equivalent to approximately 101 million people, a number that has risen since the pandemic.
Interestingly, cost and other financial priorities are the top two reasons that the survey participants said they do not have (or do not have enough) life insurance, illustrating that a majority of consumers may be over-estimating the actual cost of the products. The four demographic segments with the highest unmet life insurance needs are:
- Families with income less than $50k (approximately 35 million people)
- Millenials and Gen Z (approximately 53 million consumers)
- Black and Hispanic Americans (approximately 39 million potential policyholders)
- Women (estimated at 54 million consumers)
The findings seem to indicate a clear path for life insurers to sell more products: develop products and messaging that specifically target these groups, and roundtable participants discussed how this may -- or may not -- happen.
Life & Health Roundtables are held quarterly, open to all SIR members. The objectives of this forum are to discuss the competitive and industry environment, to form relationships and to build our competitive and market intelligence toolkits. For more information, please content Chris at chris.rzany@fidelitylife.com.