Life Insurance Carriers NAICS 524113

Jun 19, 2025 - Weight Loss Drugs Affect the Life Insurance Market

• GLP-1 weight loss drugs are not only transforming people’s weights, but they’re also having an unintended effect on the life insurance industry. Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have been revolutionary in combating obesity, but there are downsides, particularly if patients stop taking them. When patients drop a GLP-1 it can have physical consequences such as blood pressure and weight spikes within months, which can possibly be life threatening. This causes “mortality slippage” in the life insurance industry, jargon that describes assigning someone a lower risk than is appropriate. Life insurers working off of old information will inevitably underwrite GLP-1 policies incorrectly and be liable to higher payouts if a policy holder dies after quitting GLP-1. (Half of GLP-1 patients quit within a year due to high costs and side effects.) The industry is compensating by adding GLP-1 questions to the application process and requiring proof of a year’s continuous use.
• Life insurance carrier industry employment stayed relatively flat throughout 2024 and into early 2025, per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, but hiring trends point to overall staff growth for the full year. According to a Q1 study by insurance staffer The Jacobson Group and consultancy Aon, 60% of life and health insurance companies plan to add staff this year, while only 12% of insurance companies overall plan to cut workers (mostly from consolidation and automation). The study also found 73% of life and health companies expect to grow revenue in 2025. An optimistic financial outlook along with technological advancements open up opportunities for hiring for more employees in AI, cybersecurity, and data analytics. Life insurance agents are on average older workers, according to trade association LIMRA, and the industry expects roughly 400K retirements by the end of 2026 in a generational transfer of the field.

• Life insurance new premium collected increased 3% year over year in 2024 to $15.9 billion, according to LIMRA’s retail individual life insurance sales survey. It was the fourth straight year with record new premium collections, despite the number of policies sold throughout 2024 remaining flat. Key to the growth last year was the independent distribution channel, in which agents are able to sell policies from multiple insurers instead of for a single company. According to LIMRA, the sales channel accounted for 60% of life insurance and annuity sales in 2024. The industry is selling smaller and more simplified policies to middle class and high-salary consumers looking for stable investment opportunities amidst an unstable stock market. Indexed universal life policies had the most growth, up 4% for the year to $3.8 billion in new premium.
• The life insurance industry’s growing practice of partnering with offshore reinsurance companies to mitigate their financial exposure is increasingly becoming a headache for regulators and credit rating agencies, according to a new report from Moody’s. Amid a flurry of M&A activity in the industry, life insurance and annuity companies are increasingly selling a portion of their portfolios to reinsurance companies in tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Offshoring to the reinsurance market lets insurers cut operational expenses, take advantage of tax breaks, and share the policy risk. Moody’s states that the practice creates transparency problems for both credit agencies and US regulators. Life insurance credit ratings became a hot topic in 2024 after Atlantic Coast Life and Sentinel Security Life successfully sued credit agency AM Best after it lowered their ratings. The case spurred fears that credit agencies might not downgrade insurance companies if they fear lawsuits will follow.