It is often said that life insurance policies are sold and not bought. However a recent study has shown that there are many more Americans who prefer to purchase life insurance policy by way of direct buying techniques. About 64 percent of the consumers still like to purchase life insurance from financial of insurance professionals; the number has decreased since 1996, when 80 percent people chose to buy the policies face-to-face. Nowadays over 26 percent of the adult consumers like to buy life insurance products directly through mail, phone or the Internet.
It is obvious that Internet has essentially changed the buying practices of the consumers in the last 15 years. Life insurance companies and agents have become aware of the increasing interest of consumers to use the web for research and purchasing life insurance. They have employed innovative strategies and developed means to attract as well as serve prospective clients through social media platform and websites which are convenient for the users.
LIMRA and the nonprofit LIFE Foundation have released the findings for the insurance industry. It can be seen in the “2011 Insurance Barometer Study,” which is an innovative survey conducted every year to augment the perspective about the behavior and attitude of the consumer regarding an array of financial and insurance planning issues.
It was also seen through the study that prospective buyers typically see life insurance as a requisite and 86 percent agreed that life insurance is required by most people. On the other hand the number came down to 70 percent when the same people were asked if they require a personal life insurance. There are just around 63 percent of surveyed people who had some kind of a life insurance. This is very much like the LIMRA conducted research in 2010.
It is true that the percent of individuals who prefer to purchase life insurance via the Internet is comparatively small in comparison to the percent of people who like to purchase from insurance agents; the Internet has started playing a significant role in eight out of every ten life insurance policy purchase. 59 percent of the people used the Internet to conduct a research, but they finally bought the life insurance product from the insurance agent. There were about twenty-one percent people who researched as well as finalized to purchase of the policy online. Ninety percent of the people between the ages of 25 to 44 years used the Internet in some manner during the process of buying life insurance.
