Still, retiring boomers looking for a steady income stream are seen as an opportunity to boost annuity sales as they “shift their retirement accounts strategy from accumulation to decumulation,” according to the forecast.

Investments in Big Data and analytics can be a means of boosting sales as well, although according to Tom Scales, research director at Celent, the industry hasn’t really made the leap that will allow it to benefit from its use. “The wealth of data in insurers is huge, but they have not leveraged it well,” Scales said.

He added, “Think of the direct link between your social media posts and your life events. Surely there is an opportunity to make sales of life insurance when someone posts pictures of their new baby on Facebook. Similarly the post ‘pictures of my retirement party’ certainly leads to an opportunity for retirement products or postretirement planning.”

Whether such moves will be welcome to prospective customers remains to be seen, although the relentlessness of Big Data came through in something else Scales said:

“There still seems to be concern about channel conflict in using customer data, but that time has passed — if the carrier doesn’t use it, a competitor will.”