More Universal Life Comes With Long-Term Care Riders: Milliman

For indexed universal life buyers, chronic illness riders are more popular.

For many Americans, universal life insurance and life insurance serve as long-term care financing vehicles. (Credit: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg)

More universal life insurance (UL) policies may be coming with chronic illness riders, and more indexed universal life (IUL) policies may be coming with long-term care (riders.

Susan Saip and Carl Friedrich, actuaries at Milliman, have published new data on the market for UL and IUL benefits in a new survey report summary.

The latest survey attracted responses from 30 issuers.

The issuers generated $600 million in premiums from the sale of individual UL policies in the first three quarters of 2019, and 55% of the premiums were tied to policies that came with LTC riders.

That compares with $1.1 billion in premiums and 51% of the premiums being tied to policies with LTC benefits in 2018.

Resources

For IUL policies, chronic illness riders were the stars.

Issuers sold IUL policies with $1.1 billion in sales for the first quarters of 2019, and 37% of those sales tied to IUL policies with chronic illness riders.

That compares with $1.3 in sales, and 33% of the sales being tied to IUL policies with chronic illness riders, in 2018.

Definitions

A UL policy is a life insurance policy with flexible premiums and flexible benefits. Interest earnings on the account value can increase the policy’s cash value.

An IUL policy is a life insurance policy with flexible premiums, flexible benefits, and a crediting rate tied to the performance of an investment index.

A chronic illness rider pays benefits for insureds who suffer from terminal illnesses or critical illnesses.

An LTC rider pays benefits to insureds who are unable to perform activities of daily living or who need care due to an inability to live without supervision.

— Read Average Term Life Premium Falls: Milliman Surveyon ThinkAdvisor.

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