Life Insurance Statistics
Raise your hand if you love facts about life insurance statistics! What…nobody? What about life insurance trivia? Still nobody?
Well perhaps we’re a little wacky at LIB because we put together a bunch of life insurance fun facts for you. In fact (no pun intended), we have over 20 Interesting Insurance facts that you may find entertaining.
>>For later: When you’re done reading this post, make sure to check out our best insurance companies article where we review 50+ carriers.
Interesting Facts About Life Insurance
Household Breadwinner Dies? Within 30 Days, 35% of Americans Will Feel it Financially
FACT #1: Over one third of all households in America said they would feel the unfortunate financial effects within 1 month if the household’s main breadwinner were to die. Read more about death statistics here.
50 Million People Feel They Need More Coverage
FACT #2: Americans know the value of life insurance so much that approximately 1 out of 5 people think they don’t have enough coverage.
60% of Adults Own Life Insurance
FACT #3: The majority of adults own some form of life insurance. 59% (3 out of 5 consumers) own an individual insurance policy, have coverage from work or both.
Top 3 Reasons Americans Bought life insurance
Here are the Top 3 reasons Americans bought a policy last year:
- Cover their final expenses and burial (91 percent)
- To transfer wealth and/or leave an inheritance for a beneficiary (63 percent)
- To cover lost wages and replace income of a wage earner in the household (66 percent)
22% of People Have Group & Individual Coverage
FACT #4: It’s always great to have an individual insurance policy that you personally own. You never know if you’ll leave your employer or get fired. With that said, group term insurance is a great benefit.
23% Fewer Employers Are Offering Life Insurance to Their Employees
FACT #5: Here are some facts on group coverage: Only 48 percent of employers offered insurance to their workers in 2017. That is a 23 percent decline when compared to 2006. Unfortunately this is a bad trend. There has been a steady decline with employer sponsored insurance policies since 2006.
20% Who don’t own any life insurance don’t know how much to get
FACT #6: Americans who don’t have any coverage whatsoever need help. They know they should have insurance, but don’t know how much to get. (*Hint – LIB is here to help)
40% Have No Idea How Much Coverage They Need and how much to buy
FACT #7: People are confused with how much insurance they need. They also don’t know what type of insurance to buy. This is even more apparent with Millennials. Approximately 60% of Millennials surveyed felt this way.
16% Of Spouses and Partners are in the dark
FACT #8: About 16% of Americans have no idea how much coverage their significant other has. That number is way too high.
25% Have never received help from a professional
FACT #9: Almost 1/4 of Americans said that they have never been approached by an insurance agent or financial professional about their coverage needs. This percentage goes even higher to 43% with Millennials.
63% Americans aren’t Buying Life Insurance because of Price
FACT #10: Consumers feel that insurance is too expensive to buy as the main reason to not purchase a policy. The other main reasons were due to other financial priorities and that they felt like they already had enough insurance.
50% of Life Insurance Shoppers Love the Internet
FACT #11: Approximately half of all shoppers over 18 years of age shop for insurance or look for information online. 29% of all shoppers said the will do their insurance research and purchase online. This is an increase of 7% compared to 2016. Baby Boomers really make use of online information. 61% of Baby Boomers said that they found online information to be helpful.
Almost 33% of Americans Bought or Tried to Buy Life Insurance Online
FACT #12: Here are some interesting insurance facts. Millennials (73%) were the ones who wanted to meet with a financial advisor more than any other group followed by Baby Boomers (69%) and Gen Xers (64%). Millennials were also reported to be the ones who actually work with a financial professional over the other age groups.
70% of Whole Life Is Bought by Gen X and Boomers
FACT #13: The younger generations are more than likely to buy term insurance instead of permanent coverage. Millennials who purchased permanent products, the majority opted for Whole Life (46%) followed by UL (25%).
19 Million Shoppers Begin to Buy Life Insurance – but never finish.
FACT #14: There are almost 19 million insurance shoppers who get stuck and quit the buying process. It’s getting better because more and more companies are offering options like no medical exam term coverage with simplified issue underwriting. Some insurance market statistics are very concerning. This is one of them because people are putting their loved ones financial futures in jeopardy simply because they didn’t complete the application.
52% of Americans want to Skip the Medical Exam
FACT #15: People are busy and don’t want the hassle of scheduling a medical exam. Some people hat needles and don’t want a blood test. Over 50% of potential shoppers said they’d be more likely to buy if the medical exam wasn’t required. The great news is that they’re in luck. There are many no medical exam insurance companies available. Products such as term, guaranteed issue, and final expense can be bought without an exam.
$209,000 Mortgage Debt!
FACT #16: 84% of people between the ages of 46-49 have an average mortgage debt of over $209,000
Over 790 Life Insurance Companies in the United States
FACT #17: Ready for some interesting facts about insurance companies? There are 797 insurance companies in the U.S. There has been a steady decline in the number of insurance companies in the United States. The peak came in 1990 when there were 2,195 insurance companies in America.
Prudential has the most assets with over $595 Billion!
FACT #18: Want to know who the largest insurance company in the United States is? When looking at total assets, Prudential comes in at the top spot. Prudential has over $5,595,550,000 in assets.
$137 Billion in Life Insurance Premium
FACT #19: The statistics for insurance companies are pretty incredible. Especially when looking at the total amount of premiums paid. There were over $137,000,000,000 in insurance premiums by the end of 2017. That is up from $115 billion the previous year.
Most Shoppers think life insurance is 3xs the actual cost
Fact #20: Last but not least, most consumers would probably leave empty handed if they were on the Price Is Right. If insurance was on the Showcase Showdown, they’d be way off on how much it costs. Shoppers estimated the cost of coverage to be over 3 times the actual price!
Final thoughts
We hope that these statistics provided you some interesting facts about life insurance. The bottom line with several of these facts about life insurance is that people are underinsured and believe life insurance is too expensive.
>>Want More?: Looking for some more entertaining life insurance posts?
Be sure to check out our Game of Thrones Characters: What if they had life insurance?
