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, 2014-2018

($000)

  2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Death benefits $65,960,933 $72,320,822 $73,996,171 $74,942,640 $77,430,727
Matured endowments, excluding annual
pure endowments		 350,488 397,554 420,287 437,591 381,587
Annuity benefits 69,583,732 73,535,187 74,769,738 77,043,317 78,392,309
Disability, accident and health benefits (1) 113,572,825 115,468,861 120,056,048 126,787,598 132,337,071
Coupons, pure endowment and
similar benefits		 18,992 18,237 19,509 19,406 11,216
Surrender benefits, withdrawals
for life contracts		 281,532,892 272,998,652 265,095,216 308,928,847 350,278,917
Group conversions 28,088 48,382 30,872 25,719 26,702
Interest and adjustments on deposit
type contracts		 7,749,827 8,009,313 9,407,551 8,348,035 9,539,457
Payments on supplementary contracts
with life contingencies		 2,237,030 2,120,777 2,062,662 2,106,523 2,152,431
Increase in aggregate reserve 100,984,602 72,537,331 123,731,601 98,004,458 133,817,431
Total benefits and claims $642,018,058 $617,451,481 $669,589,655 $696,644,134 $784,367,507

(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.

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