S&P Global: US Life Insurers’ Group Life Sales Surge 20.9% in Q2 2026

S&P Global: US life insurance companies recorded $268.92 billion in total direct premiums and considerations during the second quarter of 2026, marking a 2.0% rise from the same period last year, based on an aggregated review of statutory filings from over 660 individual life entities. The increase follows a slight dip in industry-wide premiums during the first quarter, with life insurance sales serving as the main driver of the quarter’s overall gain.

S&P Global: Group life business line leads growth, up 20.9% on large corporate-owned policies

Direct premiums for group life insurance climbed 20.9% year over year to reach $14.56 billion, making it the fastest-growing business line for the quarter. Three insurers accounted for most of this expansion: Nationwide Life Insurance Co., The Prudential Insurance Company of America, and American General Life Insurance Co., a Corebridge Financial Inc. subsidiary. All three carriers hold substantial positions in the bank-owned life insurance (BOLI) and corporate-owned life insurance (COLI) markets.

At least one insurer’s results were lifted by a single sizable BOLI or COLI transaction closed during the quarter. Because premiums from these policies can be classified under either the group or individual line depending on how a contract is structured, the group life segment’s year-over-year comparisons tend to swing considerably. Stripping out Nationwide, Prudential and Corebridge from the total, the underlying group life growth rate for the quarter comes in closer to 1.5%.

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S&P Global: Individual life premiums rise 4.1%, with Protective and Lincoln National among the standouts

The individual life line grew 4.1% to $46.05 billion for the quarter. Among individual carriers, the group headed by Protective Life Insurance Co. reported a jump in individual life premiums to $1.41 billion, up from $967.4 million a year earlier. Lincoln National Corp. posted a 23.7% increase in individual life premiums, reaching $1.99 billion.

Lincoln National Chief Executive Ellen Cooper reported an 80% year-over-year rise in overall life sales, pointing to strong demand for MoneyGuard — the insurer’s hybrid life and long-term care offering — along with a variable universal life product carrying limited guarantees. Cooper also pointed to a single large transaction that pushed up the company’s executive benefits sales, which encompass its BOLI and COLI business; those sales reached $113 million for the quarter, compared with $34 million in the second quarter of 2025.

Taken together, individual and group life premiums rose 7.7% to $60.61 billion for the quarter — matching the industry’s strongest pace of life insurance growth since the second quarter of 2025.

S&P Global: Individual annuity considerations inch up 0.3%, falling short of LIMRA’s record survey figure

Individual annuity considerations increased just 0.3% to $113.44 billion for the quarter, with performance varying widely across the largest annuity writers and across different ways of measuring the business. That modest statutory gain stands apart from LIMRA’s quarterly sales survey, which put total individual annuity sales at a record $123.9 billion for the quarter, a 4% year-over-year increase attributed to gains in both traditional variable annuities and registered index-linked annuities (RILAs).

The difference between LIMRA’s reported sales total and the statutory considerations figure reached $10.46 billion for the quarter — consistent with the gap seen in the first quarter, but notably wider than the $5.77 billion average quarterly gap recorded across 2025.

LIMRA’s data shows fixed annuity sales falling 3.6% year over year in the quarter, even as total variable annuity sales rose 23.4%. Over the first half of 2026, fixed annuity sales are down 5.2% while variable annuity sales are up 21.0%.

Traditional variable annuity sales rose 25.2% to $17.9 billion during the quarter, outpacing the 22.0% growth in RILA sales, which reached $23.3 billion. That marks the first quarter in which traditional variable annuity sales have outgrown RILA sales since LIMRA began tracking the two categories separately, starting in the first quarter of 2019. LIMRA’s overall individual annuity sales survey showed a 3.9% year-over-year increase for the quarter.

S&P Global: Athene stays on top in individual annuities as MassMutual, Corebridge post steep drops

Athene Holding Ltd.’s US subsidiaries held their position as the top writer of individual annuities for the quarter, reporting $12.35 billion in considerations, up sharply from $7.44 billion a year earlier. The insurer credited the gain to its fixed annuity business, specifically multiyear guaranteed annuities, along with what it called record RILA inflows, partly offset by weaker fixed index annuity (FIA) sales.

Jackson Financial Inc., the top seller of traditional variable annuities, reported individual annuity considerations of $7.14 billion, a 49.3% year-over-year increase the company linked to stronger retail sales of RILA and FIA products.

New York Life Insurance Co., Equitable Holdings Inc. and Nationwide also reported double-digit percentage gains. New York Life pointed to increased sales of participating income annuities within its Retail Annuities segment as a factor.

By contrast, the group led by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., along with Corebridge and Pacific Mutual Holding Co., saw year-over-year declines of 54.3%, 34.7% and 10.2%, respectively. MassMutual attributed its drop to reduced premium income from fixed and income annuity products.

S&P Global: Pension risk transfer slowdown drags group annuity considerations down 6.9%

Group annuity considerations came in at $32.95 billion for the three months ended June 30, 2026, down 6.9% from a year earlier, as the absence of large pension risk transfer (PRT) deals continued to weigh on this segment.

Steep declines were reported across several of the largest group annuity writers: Nationwide fell 45.3%, MassMutual dropped 34.6%, Prudential Financial Inc. declined 20.8%, and Lincoln National fell 20.0%. Transamerica Life Insurance Co. and Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association of America (TIAA) each reported declines of about 10.0%. MassMutual pointed to weaker pension risk transfer, stable value and workplace pension activity as contributing factors.

Prudential Chief Executive Andrew Sullivan, speaking during the company’s second-quarter earnings call, described PRT activity as soft, noting the US market saw no jumbo transactions during the first half of the year. Sullivan said he does not expect second-half sales volumes to reach the records of recent years, though he characterized the PRT market as holding meaningful long-term opportunity despite the quarter-to-quarter unevenness in deal flow.

S&P Global: Accident-and-health premium growth cools for a third straight quarter

Accident-and-health premiums grew 5.2% year over year in the second quarter, extending a three-quarter streak of slowing growth. The life insurance divisions of UnitedHealth Group Inc. and CVS Health Corp. — which together generate slightly more than half of all accident-and-health direct premiums reported by life insurers — posted growth rates of 2.6% and 5.8%, respectively.

S&P Global: Methodology

The figures are drawn from Exhibit 1 of quarterly statutory statements compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence as of Aug. 20, 2026, with adjustments made where data was missing or inaccurate. Two adjustments materially affect the totals: statutory figures for The Prudential Insurance Co. of America were entered manually, since New Jersey law does not require public disclosure of quarterly statutory filings for insurers domiciled in the state, so figures published on Prudential’s investor relations site were used instead.

A second adjustment accounts for AmFirst Insurance Co., which shifted from filing health statutory statements to life statutory statements amid rapid growth in its fronted multiyear guaranteed annuity (MYGA) and fixed index annuity (FIA) business; AmFirst’s direct individual annuity business totaled $2.62 billion for the first half of 2026, up from $671.3 million a year earlier, with $1.55 billion of that written in the second quarter alone.

Insurers that had not yet submitted second-quarter statutory filings accounted for roughly $1.42 billion in total direct premiums and considerations during the second quarter of 2025 — about 1.0% of the industry total for that period. Because of these adjustments and estimates, the industry-wide totals and year-over-year comparisons cited here may differ from figures published elsewhere using S&P Global Market Intelligence data.

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