Innovating Life Insurance: Expanding Value Beyond Death Benefits
November 2025
Authors
Han Henry Chen, FSA, FCIA, MAAA
Marshall Lin, FSA, MAAA, CFA
Yi Fan Hao, FSA, CERA
Jeian Simbahon, FSA, MAAA
Executive Summary
The innovation landscape in life insurance is increasingly shifting towards providing benefits that extend beyond traditional death benefits. This evolution often manifests in the form of combination products, product bundling, and ancillary benefits. These innovative designs aim to enhance customer value throughout the policyholder's lifetime, addressing a wider array of financial and lifestyle needs while managing costs effectively.
This report encapsulates research on how U.S. insurers are innovating in the realm of non-life benefit offerings. The methodology included a comprehensive review of existing literature and interviews with industry professionals.
- The researchers began with an initial hypothesis regarding non-life benefits in life insurance product innovation, informed by industry experience, which was subsequently validated and refined through a literature review.
- Discussions with industry practitioners specializing in life insurance product innovation provided additional insights and perspectives on the hypothesis and remaining questions.
- Highlights of life insurance product innovation were gathered from selected international markets, offering a comparative analysis to U.S. product innovation.
Key findings from this research include:
- Continued Innovation Beyond Death Benefits: As competition intensifies, insurers are advised to innovate continuously to enhance product value while managing costs for policyholders. A significant focus of this innovation is on non-life benefits, which encompass combination products, product bundling, and ancillary benefits. Insurers are responding to consumer and distributor feedback by simplifying existing products, enhancing user experiences, increasing consumer engagement, and leveraging technology to reduce the friction along the sales process.
- Diverse Approaches to Innovation: Companies exhibit varied perspectives on innovation, with some emphasizing adjacent innovations while others pursue transformational changes. Organizational culture significantly influences innovation, with some firms establishing dedicated cross-functional teams to foster idea generation. For multinational insurers, insights from international counterparts can be a valuable source of inspiration. Some companies are not solely concentrating on pricing; they are also utilizing branding, distribution networks, and other competitive advantages in their product innovations.
The research team also explored the challenges and opportunities associated with non-life benefits:
- Navigating Complexity: Integrating non-life benefits presents challenges, including compliance with both life and non-life regulations (e.g., product tax, product filings), system implementation, policy administration, financial modeling, and effectively communicating the value proposition to consumers.
- Opportunities Beyond Challenges: Despite the complexities, opportunities abound for non-life benefit providers. These include aligning insurer and policyholder interests, creating additional touchpoints beyond the point of sale, and gaining a more comprehensive understanding of consumers' overall financial needs.
The report concludes with a summary of the mindset, approach, and skill set that the interviewed industry practitioners suggest actuaries cultivate to remain effective in this evolving landscape: technology fluency, consumer centricity, adaptability and continuous learning, collaboration and communication, and holistic risk management.
Material
Acknowledgements
The researchers’ deepest gratitude goes to those without whose efforts this project could not have come to fruition: the Project Oversight Group and others for their diligent work overseeing questionnaire development, analyzing, and discussing respondent answers, and reviewing and editing this report for accuracy and relevance.
Project Oversight Group members:
Kaitlin Creighton, FSA, MAAA, CERA
Qing Fang, FSA, MAAA, CERA
Tariq Hussain, FSA, MAAA
Yussef Ourchane, FSA, MAAA
Mark Shemtob, FSA, MAAA, EA, MSPA
Peik Hong Tan, FSA
Kalluru Venkateswar, FSA, MAAA
At the Society of Actuaries Research Institute:
Joe Alaimo, ASA, ACIA
Korrel Crawford
Individual Contributors:
Chinwook Baek
Muhammad Faran Bahri, ASA, ACIA
Caleb Bousu, FSA, MAAA
Nick Cavallo, FSA, MAAA
Jim Cristallo, FSA, MAAA
Andrew Freedman, ASA
Andrew Gallacher, MA
Simon Girard, FSA, FCIA
Andy Gordon, FSA, MAAA
Mike Haas, FSA, MAAA
Mike Hamilton, FSA, MAAA
Ben Hanley, FSA, MAAA
Ryan Hinchey, FSA
Jessica Kirkwood, FIA
Shannon Pogreba
Ronnie Roberts, FSA, MAAA
Angelo Wang
Lisa Wang, FSA
Ziling Yong, FIA, MAAA
Questions or Comments?
Give us your feedback! Take a short survey on this report. Take Survey
If you have comments or questions, please send an email to Research@soa.org