The current economic situation for many life insurance buyers is unstable. House prices are rising fast. Daily expenses are rising too. Raises are not meeting inflation and interest rates are up too. It is a tough time for all generations, but none more than Gen Z.
The life of my youth, where a single wage earner supported a nice home, two cars, and an annual vacation are gone. The purpose of this post is not to lament the changes, but to talk about what life insurers can do to benefit those affected beyond just the everyone needs life insurance discussion.
This post may ramble a bit, but the goal is to open discussions in your company and beyond. I would certainly be open to brainstorming sessions with some readers.
Making It Easier
One of the complaints we consistently hear from younger buyers is that it is still too hard to buy life insurance. Certainly, the experience has improved with automated underwriting technology reducing the cycle time, but it is still just too complex. This is borne out by our observations on Direct to Consumer (D2C) sales. We saw a bubble during the pandemic, but that bubble burst and sales have returned to focusing on agent sales. But it is still too overwhelming. No one wants to spend an hour filling out all the questions on a life insurance application. Worse, your agent has to ask you embarrassing questions. Your agent is likely your friend, or the parent of one of your kid’s friends, or maybe a teacher or soccer coach. These questions are rough.
And who remembers whether their first cousin had cancer and what kind. That was a little bit of exaggeration for effect, but not by much. So, let’s make it easier. Split up the Part A and Part B. Put the Part B online for the consumer to finish but prefill it will every bit of available data that you can. The majority of the entry should be confirming, not entering. It is on an online auto application. They know my cars. They know our drivers. They know if we’ve had tickets. Apply that to life insurance. Your prescriptions? Prefilled. Your doctors? Prefilled. Recent surgeries and medical conditions? Prefilled. The data is there. Why do we still make the prospective insured type it in? Maybe they won’t have all the data, but you’ll have a lot of the data.
Then make a decision. Not in a week or two weeks or a month. Right then. Immediately. I can do it with my car insurance and immediately print off my insurance cards. Why can’t I reliably do it with my life insurance? Now some of you are going to challenge me and tell me your company can do that. That’s amazing! More power to you, but you’re an outlier, not mainstream. Yet. Others of you are going to tell me the risk is too high to do that. You’re both likely right, but we need a middle ground that makes buying life insurance simple.
Leverage GenAI
Right now, insurers are being careful about deploying GenAI to their customers. The great use cases that are already in production have tended to focus on the insurance call center agent, the insurance agent, or IT.
This makes sense, because these are professionals that can filter the results and improve accuracy.
But there is one obvious area where GenAI could shine. Education. Life insurance is complex, and the old adage has always been that it is sold, not bought. This makes sense as long as our industry keeps it confusing. That’s where GenAI can come in. Host a tool on your site that teaches life insurance. A simple query life Why do I need life insurance could be transformative to the uninformed buyer. When do I need life insurance is an opportunity to discuss life events that change their needs. What kind of life insurance do I need is the chance to explain term vs. whole life vs. universal life vs. everything else.
You see where I’m headed and I hope many of you already do this. If so, reach out. I’d love to see it.
Close
I could go on and on and on and would love to hear your ideas and thoughts on topics I should expand and share. That said, our experience from reviewing our Model Insurer nominations from this show how important the entire customer experience is to the prospective insured and to the agent. It is tough right now and life insurance is a want not a need to most buyers even if that is wrong. Let’s educate the buyer, help the buyer, and reward the buyer in ways that we can.
For more information about the Model Insurer awards program, click here. Winners will be announced on June 18th, 2025. For more information on improved customer service, consider these reports:
For more information on improved customer service, consider these reports:
Customer Satisfaction Improves When Vendors Listen to Underwriters
How Small Business Owners Buy Insurance
Digitizing the Agent: How Life and Annuity Insurers View Their Current And Future State
Digitizing the Agent: How Property & Casualty Insurers View Their Current And Future State
For more information on the use of AI in insurance, consider:
