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Breaking Through the Noise: Life Insurance Awareness MonthLife Insurance Awareness Month

Author

Bryan Hodgens, AIF
Senior Vice President, Head of Research
LIMRA and LOMA
bhodgens@limra.com

September 2025

For more than a decade, the industry has wrestled with sluggish life insurance sales and falling ownership rates. While LIMRA research shows consumers recognize life insurance is an important financial tool to help protect their financial security, just over half (51 percent) say they have coverage, down from 63 percent in 2011.

Although demand in the general population remains strong — approximately 100 million consumers say they need life insurance coverage, and more than a third say they intend to buy each year — just a fraction of these consumers actually follow through and buy life insurance. Just 9.4 million policies were sold in 2024, consistent with policy sales over the past decade.

While our industry has focused on consumer misconceptions and lack of knowledge, our research finds the biggest obstacle preventing people from getting life insurance coverage is that they don’t believe they can afford it, given their other financial priorities and commitments.

Rising economic uncertainty, persistent inflation and news about new tariffs are taking their toll on consumer confidence and shifting consumer behavior. LIMRA’s latest consumer sentiment study shows growing concern about the economy and financial security, with 59 percent of Americans expressing high concerns about the economy — 14 points higher than at the start of the year — and more than a third (36 percent) very worried about their own finances. A recent McKinsey report shows 54 percent of consumers plan to cut back on nonessential spending in the second half of the year. Even if consumers believe they need life insurance, is it reasonable to expect they might take on another financial commitment right now?

We need to demonstrate why life insurance is a good financial bet for their future security and that it delivers financial benefits today.

Currently, many young adults are delaying common life events, like getting married, having or adopting children or buying homes, because they don’t think they can afford it. Traditionally, the industry has used these life events to engage consumers and encourage them to shop and buy life insurance. Our industry needs to find new ways to identify and engage the 54 million self-identified uninsured and underinsured younger adults to help them address their life insurance needs.

In addition, younger adults are far less concerned about leaving their families in financial jeopardy should they die unexpectedly than they are about being able to support themselves should they become ill or injured, paying their monthly bills, and saving for a financial emergency and retirement. New research suggests we need to build products that also address these financial priorities if we hope to get more young people insured.

Meeting Priorities

New research by LIMRA and Capgemini reveals that consumers — particularly those under 40 — are struggling to address all of their financial needs with the resources they have and want to invest in products that have the flexibility to deliver customized value as their lives evolve.

For example, our study shows 4 in 10 consumers ages 40 and younger say they want a life insurance product that offers wellness support. Is there an opportunity to integrate more financial, physical, and mental wellness riders into retail life insurance products to address younger consumers’ priorities? Yes, but we also need to ensure these riders are easy to understand. In our survey, young consumers said current living benefit riders are complicated, misunderstood and not competitive with other wellness offerings in the marketplace. We not only need to offer products that have living benefits, but we also need to do more to explain how they fit into consumers’ financial plans.

Personalized Messaging

Life Insurance Awareness Month (LIAM) is an annual campaign during which the industry focuses on engaging and educating consumers about the value of life insurance. How do we use this engagement opportunity to drive consumer action? According to a recent joint LIMRA-Bain study, carriers should leverage new technology to better identify and target uninsured and underinsured consumers with customized communications while developing stronger leads for their distribution partners.

Today’s consumers are much more media savvy and inundated with advertising messages. We need to stand out with credible, clear information and messages on a variety of media —websites, social media, texting, etc. — about our products and services that illustrate the value of life insurance throughout their lifetime. Behavioral economic research suggests consumers are more likely to respond to a message that is tailored to them and received at just the right moment. Our research recommends life insurers use artificial intelligence and data analytics to proactively identify people experiencing a life event and deliver personalized messages to them.

That said, financial professionals remain the most influential when getting consumers to buy life insurance. The research shows the industry needs to do more to help connect prospects — consumers who acknowledge a life insurance coverage gap — to advisors. According to the LIMRA-Bain study, although 72 percent of prospects say they want to work with an advisor to purchase life insurance, just 15 percent actually connect with one.

Carriers can use their data to help their distribution partners make stronger connections. Leveraging the consumer data they collect with predictive models, they can improve the lead quality for their distribution, increasing the likelihood of a sale. Financial professionals surveyed said 86 percent of clients who consult with them about life insurance ultimately buy a policy. By building stronger consumer profiles to help identify and score warm leads, life insurers can strengthen their relationships with distribution.

The Payoff

In 2024, the industry sold just under $16 billion in retail life insurance new annualized premium. Our industry must focus on every aspect of our engagement process, from product innovation and messaging, to education and distribution, to narrow the life insurance coverage gap with young people. Converting less than 30 percent of the more than 54 million young adults who say they need life insurance — those most serious about buying within the next 12 months — could boost sales to over $25 billion.

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