Nearly one in five consumers is prepared to buy life insurance through a retail outlet, according to new research.
LIMRA published this finding in a summary of results from its 2013 Insurance Barometer Study of consumers’ attitudes about life insurance, their buying preferences and interest in purchasing life insurance through nontraditional channels. Conducted by LIMRA and the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education (LIFE), the survey polled 2,000 U.S. adults between ages 18 and 75 who are the sole decision makers for financial matters in the household.
When asked about their willingness to buy life insurance from a retail outlet — among them a warehouse club store like Costco or a superstore like Wal-Mart or Target — 17 percent of the survey respondents said they would be amenable to doing so.
Among the reasons for their interest, consumers who are willing to purchase at a superstore (7 percent) cite perceptions such as:
- Reasonable cost (63 percent);
- Simple process (44 percent);
- Convenience (43 percent); and
- No pressure to buy (42 percent).
The LIMRA survey notes, however, that buying life insurance from a financial professional remains the “preferred” method, a finding consistent with previous LIMRA surveys.