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U.S. life insurance benefits sales might grow a little this year, or they might not.
Analysts at LIMRA are predicting, cautiously, that total workplace life sales could increase 3% over the next 12 months, to about $4.5 billion, after rising 3.3% in 2024.
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The unemployment rate is still low. Typical employers still say they want to keep the employees they have.
Related: Workplace supplemental product sales rise 6%
But general inflation is eroding workers' purchasing power, employment in many sectors is soft, and rising health coverage costs are crowding other benefits out of some employers' benefits budgets.
The colliding forces could produce slower growth in sales of life insurance benefits and two other popular non-medical benefits, long-term disability insurance and short-term disability insurance, the LIMRA analysts said.
The analysts are predicting that long-term disability insurance sales will increase 3.8% this year, to $3.3 billion, and short-term disability insurance sales will increase 4%, to $1.3 billion.
Soft sales for employers are producing gaps in coverage for employees.
Here's what happened to participation rates between 2019 and 2024, based on LIMRA's analysis of federal government data:
- Life: 58% (down from 61%).
- Short-term disability: 39% (down from 42%).
- Long-term disability: 33% (down from 37%).
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
