How Record-Setting Sales and Innovation Are Fueling Life Insurance Growth

• By: Olivia Overman
• August 17, 2026

The life insurance industry, including accident & health, reported $741 billion in direct written premiums and deposits for the first six months of 2025, a 6% year-over-year increase in direct written premiums and deposits, according to the NAIC “U.S. Life and A&H Insurance Industry Analysis Report.” Net written premiums and deposits increased 6% to $627 billion. Overall, the life insurance industry reported $22 billion of net income, a 29% increase compared to the first six months of 2024.

“We’ve seen strong growth in premiums and policy sales, driven in part by advances in underwriting,” says Anthony Ferraro, senior vice president and chief pricing officer, Munich Re Life U.S. “Streamlined, technology-enabled processes are making it faster and easier to issue policies, which is helping carriers expand access into lower- and middle-income segments with more appropriately designed products.”

In the second quarter alone, total individual net premiums increased 13% to $4.5 billion, with new policy sales jumping 7%, the highest quarterly growth since 1983, according to LIMRA. Also, new individual life insurance premiums have set records in four of the past five years, the LIMRA report said.

“In annuities, growth has remained significant, particularly in registered index-linked annuities (RILAs),” Ferraro says. “These products continue to gain momentum due to their design flexibility and registered structure, allowing carriers to offer more tailored risk-return profiles compared to traditional fixed indexed annuities.”

Agents operating in the market are benefiting from improved product delivery thanks to technology. “Life insurance providers have made significant advances over the last several years in how coverage is purchased, creating a meaningful opportunity for agents to stand out for their clients by delivering a faster, simpler experience than many expect,” says Eric Tarnow, head of life insurance at Corebridge Financial. “With online applications and accelerated underwriting, agents can now deliver coverage much more quickly—sometimes immediately, and in many cases within 24 hours, often without the need for a medical exam.”

However, while the market demonstrates strong growth, several key factors continue to significantly influence its trajectory, such as volatile interest rates, high inflation and changing unemployment levels.

Additionally, on the regulatory front, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) raised the estate, gift and generation-skipping tax exemption to $15 million per person starting in 2026, making this permanent unless future legislation changes it. It also eliminated the rollback, which would have cut the exemption for transferring tax-free assets roughly in half, to about $6 million to $7 million, in 2026, according to LIMRA’s “Rising to the Moment: Life Insurance in a Changing World.”

“The industry is navigating a heightened degree of regulatory uncertainty,” Ferraro says. “Evolving oversight and capital requirements remain an area of focus, including the implementation of VM-22—principle-based reserving for annuities—which takes effect this year, with full compliance required by Jan. 1, 2029.”

Further, “one of the central issues facing the industry today is transparency, both from a regulatory and consumer perspective,” Ferraro explains. “Regulators, particularly in the U.S., are increasingly focused on the visibility of reserves, including concerns around capital that is deployed offshore.”

“At the same time, the growing use of private credit and other less traditional asset classes to back liabilities is raising additional questions about how risk is assessed, disclosed and managed across the value chain,” he says.

Nevertheless, 51% of American adults say they have some form of life insurance coverage—individual or group—according to the LIMRA “2025 Insurance Barometer Study,” conducted jointly by LIMRA and Life Happens. While individual life insurance sales continued to grow, a gradual slowdown is expected through 2028, according to LIMRA.

“As the population ages, demand has increased for solutions that address retirement income and long-term care needs,” Ferraro says. “This is reflected in rising sales of combination life and long-term care (LTC) products as well as SPIAs (single premium immediate annuities), both of which support income security in retirement.”

Agents can continue to keep up with market growth, as “digital platforms today increasingly give agents the flexibility to engage at the level each client prefers—whether clients want to self-direct much of the process or rely more heavily on their agent for guidance and support,” Tarnow says.

Olivia Overman is IA content editor.