What You Need to Know
- The number of new policies sold fell 11%.
- New annualized premiums from the policies sold fell just 5%.
- The pandemic may be starting to affect underwriting and claims.
COVID-19, and disruption related to the pandemic, led to a sharp drop in U.S. individual disability insurance sales between 2019 and 2020.
The number of policies sold fell 11%, to 240,000, according to insurer survey results from Milliman.
New annualized premiums from the new individual policies sold dropped 5%, to $381 million.
Milliman is an actuarial consulting firm based in Seattle. Robert Beal and Tasha Khan gathered survey responses from 15 insurers. The participating insurers produce about 90% of U.S. individual disability insurance sales.
Just four of the insurers managed to increase sales in 2020.