Wink Sees Drop in Sales of 3 Types of Life Products

Sales of three types of individual cash-value life insurance policies in the United States may have been 16% lower in the third quarter than in the third quarter of 2019.

Wink Inc. found that the sum of fixed universal life, indexed life and whole life sales sales fell to about $1.7 billion in the third quarter, down from about $2 billion from the total for the year-earlier quarter.

Resources

• A summary of Wink’s latest life results is available here.
• An article about the previous Wink life report is available here.

The Des Moines, Iowa-based company bases its numbers on results from a voluntary issuer survey.

The Wink indexed life data reflects sales of some indexed whole life policies as well as sales of indexed universal life policies.

Here’s how the Wink life numbers looked in the third quarter, and how those numbers have changed since the third quarter of 2019:

• Indexed Life: $504 million (down 9.1%)
• Whole Life: $1.1 billion (down 10%)
• Fixed Universal Life: $122 million (down 58%)

Sheryl Moore, Wink’s president, said in a commentary included with the results that she thinks sales of whole life will continue to be strong for the rest of the year.

Sales of indexed universal life may benefit, temporarily, from a consumer rush to buy the product before new life insurance policy illustration rules take effect, Moore said.

Meanwhile, “there is no end in sight to the depths that universal life sales may be subject to, should fixed interest rates not improve,” Moore said.

— Read Wink Sees Sharp Drop in Q2 Individual Life Sales, on ThinkAdvisor.

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