A Firm Foundation: How Insurance Supports the Economy

Income replacement

Life insurance benefits and claims totaled $784 billion in 2018. This includes life insurance death benefits, annuity benefits, disability benefits and other payouts, and compares with $697 billion in 2017. The largest payout, $350 billion, was for surrender benefits and withdrawals from life insurance contracts made to policyholders who terminated their policies early or withdrew cash from their policies.

Life/Annuity Insurance Benefits And Claims, 2015-2019

($000)

  2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Death benefits  $72,320,822 $73,996,171 $74,942,626 $77,076,103 $76,053,733
Matured endowments, excluding
annual pure endowments		 397,554 420,287 437,591 381,587 423,780
Annuity benefits 73,535,187 74,769,738 77,043,317 78,392,309 82,348,408
Disability, accident and
health benefits (1)		 115,468,861 120,056,048 126,785,757 132,327,869 140,621,967
Coupons, pure endowment
and similar benefits 		 18,237 19,509 19,406 11,216 4,327
Surrender benefits, withdrawals
for life contracts 		 272,998,652 265,095,216 308,928,842 350,278,913 339,640,103
Group conversions 48,382 30,872 25,719 26,702 25,537
Interest and adjustments on
deposit type contracts 		 8,009,313 9,407,551 8,348,035 9,539,457 10,044,709
Payments on supplementary
contracts with life contingencies 		 2,120,777 2,062,662 2,106,523 2,152,431 2,413,542
Increase in aggregate reserve  72,537,331 123,731,601 98,004,358 133,818,788 110,528,530
Total benefits and claims $617,451,481 $669,589,655 $696,642,288 $784,005,035 $762,104,636

(1) Excludes benefits paid by health insurance companies and property/casualty insurance companies.

Source: NAIC data, sourced from S&P Global Market Intelligence, Insurance Information Institute.

View Archived Tables