The global pandemic has influenced that influential generation, creating a notable shift in the market.
The events across the last year and a half have caused a considerable change in the life insurance market, and according to Prudential Individual Life Insurance President Salene Hitchcock-Gear, millennials are behind this shift.
The pandemic has placed our mortality and its consequences front and center stage.
Millennials, who fall between the ages of 22 and 40 years old according to the measure used by Hitchcock-Gear, have been made well aware of the risks associated with losing someone in a family. Aside from the pain of having lost a beloved family member, this can also lead to considerable financial hardships.
Recent research published by LIMRA under the title “Study Finds COVID-19 Spurs Greater Interest in Life Insurance” showed that millennials were the generation most likely to purchase life insurance as a result of the pandemic’s influence. It showed that 45 percent of people in that age range have an increased likelihood of buying the coverage because of COVID-19. Comparatively, only 15 percent of baby boomers said they would do the same, and only 31 percent of Generation Xers would buy a policy for that reason.
The massive influence of millennials has meant that their inclinations are now changing life insurance.
In Hitchcock-Gear’s report, she identified a number of ways in which the millennial generation is changing the shape of this coverage. Among them included the following:
- This coverage isn’t as common as an employment benefit. This hadn’t been a priority for millennials until quite recently.
- Digital tools are becoming increasingly available through insurer websites and apps as millennials are comfortable researching and purchasing their products and services online.
- Policies are now more customizable as millennial customers love to be able to personalize the products and services they purchase.
- Life insurance is now available exclusively online, with the assistance of a human advisor, or in the form of a combination of the two options.
Now that millennials are more heavily interested in this type of policy it is likely that they will only continue to reshape the market, the experience, and the products themselves.
