After increasing in the first quarter of the year, sales of individual life insurance policies in the United States fell 2% in the second quarter from the year earlier, according to Limra International.
In the first half, policies sold roughly equaled sales in the first half of 2003. In the past 20 years, though, the share of Americans covered by life insurance has fallen from 63% to 53%, according to Limra's research released Thursday.
Though the number of policies sold was flat in the year's first six months, annualized premium and face amount rose 10% and 9%, respectively. Annualized premium is a measure of how much buyers have paid for insurance, and face amount is the amount of coverage purchased. Universal life continued to dominate sales, with a 36% share of annual premium in the first half. Sales of variable life and variable universal life are slowly improving; premium growth was 3% for the six months and 15% for the second quarter.
Term insurance sales also continued to grow in the second quarter; annualized premium was up 7% both for the quarter and first half, from the year earlier. Whole life was the only product to decline, in both the quarter and first half. Premium dropped 6% in the quarter and 2% in the half.
