Total Canadian life insurance new annualised premium jumped 4% to (CAD) $478 million in the third quarter of 2024, according to LIMRA’s Retail Canadian Life Insurance Sales Survey.
During Q3’24, policy count dropped 17%, which was largely due to term life sales declines.
John Carroll, senior vice president and head of Life & Annuities, LIMRA and LOMA, commented: “Strong economic conditions have propelled permanent life insurance sales in the third quarter. Both participating whole life and universal life recorded substantive gains as consumers look to protect investment growth. LIMRA is projecting this trend to continue through 2025.”
Focusing on whole life, new annualised premium climbed 9% to $324 million in the third quarter of 2024. While the number of whole life policies sold fell 1%.
Meanwhile, for the second consecutive quarter, universal life (UL) new premium witnessed notable improvement, rising 7% to $63 million in the third quarter, compared to the prior year’s results.
According to LIMRA, non-level cost of insurance (COI) product sales primarily drove this increase, while the number of policies sold also increased in the third quarter too, up 2%.
Additionally, term new premium fell 11% to $91 million during Q3’24. Policy count also plummeted 27% in the quarter as well.
Year-to-date (YTD), total Canadian life insurance new annualised premium totaled $1.5 billion, representing a 5% increase from the prior year. In the first nine months of 2024, policy count dropped 5%, compared with results from same period of 2023.
At the same time, YTD, whole life new premium rose 9% to $984 million, and the number of policies sold was level with prior year’s results. YTD, whole life premium represented 68% of the total Canadian life insurance market.
“Participating whole life product sales continue to dominate the market, representing 9 in 10 dollars spent. Nearly 70% of carriers selling these products reported double-digit growth this quarter,” noted Matthew Rubino, senior research analyst, LIMRA Insurance Product Research.
As well as this, YTD, UL new premium totaled $189 million, a 1% increase from the same period in 2023, while YTD, term new premium was $278 million, down 3%.
“In 2023, term sales spiked due to new product introductions and relationships among a few companies. In 2024, term sales have returned to normal levels. While new policy count fell 27% year over year, it was more than 3% higher than third quarter 2022 results,” added Rubino.
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