{"id":18503,"date":"2020-05-27T01:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-05-27T01:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T05:30:00","slug":"poll-confirms-coronavirus-driven-rise-in-life-insurance-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2020\/05\/27\/poll-confirms-coronavirus-driven-rise-in-life-insurance-demand\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll confirms coronavirus-driven rise in life insurance demand"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-res.keymedia.com\/cms\/images\/ca\/110\/0348_637261495875620029.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>If there\u2019s one silver lining to take away from the current coronavirus pandemic, it could be the fact that more people than ever are asking important questions about their health, mortality, and financial security. And as new data from PolicyMe shows, that\u2019s translated into an increased interest in life insurance \u2014 but not necessarily an increased need.<\/p>\n<p>After polling members of the Angus Reid Forum, the insurtech platform found that Canadians are thinking more about life insurance.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly one quarter of respondents who didn\u2019t have coverage prior to the pandemic reported either purchasing it, or considering purchasing it, since the COVID-19 crisis began. Among those who said they just recently started thinking about getting life insurance coverage, two thirds (67%) said they were driven by COVID-19-related concerns.<\/p>\n<p>The top considerations relating to the pandemic were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An increased awareness of threats to life (36%);<\/li>\n<li>Reevaluating their financial situation amid the current economic climate (29%);<\/li>\n<li>Experience or threat of losing employment and, by extension, employer-provided life insurance (12%);<\/li>\n<li>Risk of getting sick with COVID-19 (8%); and<\/li>\n<li>Concerns about becoming ineligible for life insurance after getting COVID-19 (4%)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>According to Andrew Ostro, co-founder and CEO of PolicyMe, those concerns are driving real action. He said that in the past few months, the number of applications submitted through their platform has doubled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a start-up, we were always seeing great growth in the number of applications submitted,\u201d Ostro told Life and Health Professional. \u201cWe were looking at 15%-20% month-over-month growth on average prior to March. But over March, April, and May, we\u2019ve seen figures somewhere in the 60% to 80% range.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Today, PolicyMe\u2019s Canadian footprint covers BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Counting all those jurisdictions, PolicyMe is on pace to see an average of 525 applications per month submitted for April and May.<\/p>\n<p>But people\u2019s need for life insurance hasn\u2019t necessarily changed. According to Ostro, around 26% out of the thousands of applicants his company has given advice to turned out not to need life insurance; 5% of the applicants get coverage even after learning they don\u2019t need it. Despite the rise in applications, he said those statistics have remained in line with where they\u2019ve been historically.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t believe that the need for life insurance has changed at all,\u201d Ostro said. \u201cPeople who needed it before the pandemic hit still need it now, and those who didn\u2019t need it before don\u2019t need it after.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While there can be many reasons why someone might not need life insurance, he identified two high-level considerations: those who have no financial dependents, and those individuals who can \u201cself-insure\u201d because they have enough savings in place to provide for their loved ones even after they pass away.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat you really need to be looking at when you buy life insurance isn\u2019t the probability of your passing away. That\u2019s almost irrelevant,\u201d Ostro said. \u201cThe important thing to ask is: if you were to pass away tomorrow, what would happen? And that\u2019s where a lot of people get confused, because they look at the odds and not the potential impact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lifehealthpro.ca\/profiles\/poll-confirms-coronavirusdriven-rise-in-life-insurance-demand-329951.aspx\">Read the original article at https:\/\/www.lifehealthpro.ca\/rss\/ <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If there\u2019s one silver lining to take away from the current coronavirus pandemic, it could be the fact that more people than ever are asking important questions about their health, mortality, and financial security.&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}