Term Life Insurance Quotes Declining

The number of term life insurance quotes taking place is declining due to appealing new products in the life insurance marketplace.  More and more people are passing up the simplicity of term life insurance products for more complicated hybrid policies that often offer more benefits.

According to the article "Term Life Insurance Declines as Hybrid Policies Gain Ground" by Dawn Kawamoto on DailyFinance.com, the amount of new term life insurance policies in the US has dropped to 41.1% of the life insurance market in 2009 compared to 44.6% in 2007.  This information is from a report completed by the American Council of Life Insurance.  For 2010 the dip down continued even further.

The number of new term life insurance policies sold in the nation went down by 16% in the 4th quarter when compared to the 4th quarter of the previous year based on research from LIMRA.  This surprises market specialists since many personal financial advisors and life insurance experts steer many consumers towards term life insurance as the best option for many consumers.  Despite this advice, more and more consumers are leaning into purchasing life insurance policies that are not straight term.  The number of new whole life insurance policies in the US went up only 6% while universal life insurance policies went up by 20%.

Elaine Tumicki, the vice president of product research for LIMRA says some companies introduced a mixture of permanent universal life and term life insurance policies throughout 2009 and that is part of the reason term life insurance policies have declined.  Many insurers such as Unum Life Insurance offer a quality term life insurance product so consumers continue to purchase these types of policies.  The drop in sales is interesting, but won't necessarily continue.