How to Increase Life Insurance Sales in a Battered Market
What You Need to Know
- The life insurance shopping process takes many consumers three or more months.
- For a few weeks, consumers want to hear from you and insurers about life insurance.
- Which consumers? And which weeks?
Life insurance demand fell precipitously between February 2021 and the end of 2022.
Activity levels have started to recover, a little, but, at Verisk, we saw 17 straight months of negative year-over-year growth in life insurance. The industry charted less application activity as a result.
(Image: Verisk)Why did that drop in activity occur, and what can life insurance providers do to generate applications during slow periods?
Consumers have been facing sustained inflation and tightened budgets. The theory is that they are simply less interested in life insurance, and distracted by more immediate financial priorities.
Life insurance is a discretionary instrument; even in stable times, only 52% of Americans have any life insurance, and 106 million adults (about 41% of the U.S. adult population) do not believe they have adequate life insurance coverage.
Amidst the recent economic turbulence, even motivated life insurance shoppers have been letting existing policies lapse, or taking longer to buy new coverage.
You, the distributors and the insurers that write the coverage, have to work harder to reach new customers and retain current policyholders.
The Solution
Where there is risk, there is opportunity.
Savvy distributors are taking this time to build their capabilities, generate interest in a quiet market, and establish differentiated relationships with customers, powered by personalization.
While this may sound like a difficult strategy to implement, it’s more than feasible with the right tools.
Here are four steps to take to create demand in a down market.
1. Know who you want to sell to.
Not every consumer need is equal, and not every buying journey