Over 60% of respondents to the Life Insurance International 2015 outlook survey expect life insurance sales to rise over the next year, with term life assurance likely to the most popular protection product.
A lack of customer awareness about life insurance, however, was cited by the majority of respondents (56.25%) as the greatest threat to their business.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Access deeper industry intelligence
Experience unmatched clarity with a single platform that combines unique data, AI, and human expertise.
Commenting on these results, Ron Wheatcroft, technical manager at Swiss Re, says: "New individual life assurance sales dropped in 2013. This was partly a consequence of the switch to gender-neutral pricing in late 2012 which saw some business completed in 2012 to take advantage of gender-specific prices.
"The 2014 results were a modest improvement on 2013 and I’d expect this to be repeated in 2015 across both individual and group risk product lines."
The majority of executives (37.5%) believe brokers or agents will drive consumer engagement with life insurance over the next12 months. In joint second place are direct marketing and mobile phones and tablets at 18.75% respectively.
In Ian McKenna’s view, who is director of London-based Finance & Technology Research Centre, the fact that only 6.25% of respondents said the speed of technological change poses the greatest threat to their business "speaks volumes in itself".
McKenna says: "We are in a world where consumer behaviour is evolving rapidly and people are embedding mobile phone and tablet technology in every aspect of their lives.
However, the [life insurance] industry is dominated by baby boomers at a time when their core audience has moved on."
According to McKenna, only a small number of life insurers will embrace technological change and leverage it. He says: "I think a significant number of life offices will fall by the wayside."
