Written by, Marija Petkova
Updated August, 3, 2022
Buying life insurance is hardly a luxury nowadays, and for many, it may even be a necessity.
It’s a great way to protect your loved ones and their finances. You might wonder who buys life insurance and why.
Well, get ready to find the answers here. In this article, we’ll list some of the most interesting life insurance statistics about the UK.
Let’s dive in.
(Statista) (Harbour Wealth)
How many people have life insurance in the UK? One in three Brits are life insured, or more precisely, 60% have no such insurance.
One of the more notable life insurance facts about the UK is that the partners of about 500 women and 75 men younger than 50 die every day. That leaves around 100 children without one parent.
(Statista)
The life insurance market share in the UK has been decreasing gradually in the last few years. It went from 83.2% in 2007 to 71.7% in 2018, in terms of life insurance premiums as a part of total premiums.
(Statista)
The value of life insurance premiums in the UK saw a steep decline from 2018 to 2019—it went from €229.9 billion to €152.67 billion.
(Statista)
Index-linked and unit-linked insurance generated the most value for the sector in 2019, with over 50% of the gross written premiums.
(Insurance Europe) (Statista)
More than half of the total non-life premiums in Europe were in the UK in recent years, making it the biggest market for non-life premiums on the continent.
(IBISWorld)
The premium income of life insurance industries is expected to increase at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 4.6% in the six years between 2016 and 2021.
(Statista)
The total benefits paid on long-term life and annuities insurance in the UK have been declining since 2008 when they reached a peak of £62.12 billion. In 2018, they were £18.34 billion.
(Statista)
In the 14 years between 2005 and 2018, the benefits paid on long-term income protection insurance in the UK gradually increased from £1.01 billion to £1.60 billion.
(What Mortgage) (LandlordToday)
According to a recent survey, over 25%, or around 3 million UK households with mortgages, don’t have life insurance. The other roughly 8 million have life insurance.
Another study from insurer Aviva found that married couples who pay a mortgage are more likely to have life insurance—70% of all married mortgage holders do, compared to only 30% of those that never married.
What’s more, 65% of the mortgage holders who have life insurance are parents.
(Statista)
Long-term individual pension policies in force in the UK saw an increase in the last couple of years, after an extended but gradual decline between 2006 and 2016.
(Statista)
The highest number of long-term individual income protection business policies in the UK was in 2007—2.46 million. Since then, this number has been declining gradually, reaching 1.19 million in 2018.
(Statista)
The number of long-term life and annuities business policies in the UK has been declining in the last several years. The latest data is from 2018 when that number was 29.25 million.
(Statista)
In the 2018/2019 period, the FSCS (the Financial Services Compensation Scheme) in the UK compensated customers with general insurance provisions worth £126 million.
(Reassured)
Although four out of five Brits believe the life insurance claims are 80% paid out, that’s not true. So, what percentage of life insurance policies pay out? The answer is 98.3%.
(Statista)
Life insurance benefits paid out in the UK in 2019 were €146 billion—a steep decline from 2018’s €246.22 billion, which was a peak for the last 15 years.
(Statista)
The primary life insurance benefits paid in the UK for individual contracts were worth €90.92 billion in 2017, while the ones paid for group contracts reached €133.14 billion in the same year.
(Statista)
In 2019, the top life insurer in the UK was Aviva, with 2.88 million people owning a life insurance plan from this company. The second most popular firm in this category is Legal & General, with 2.5 million life insurance clients in 2019.
(Statista)
Compared to 2013, when the total number of active life insurance companies with headquarters in the UK was 190, in 2017, it fell to 168.
(Statista)
The value of UK life insurance companies’ investment portfolio reached a peak of €1.96 trillion in 2015 but fell to €1.68 trillion in 2019.
(Statista)
In the 12 years between 2008 and 2019, the investment market share of UK life insurers gradually decreased and in 2019 went below 20% for the first time in that period.
Most people in the UK don’t have life insurance, probably because, unlike health insurance, it’s not mandatory. But if you want to make sure your family has a safety net, it might make sense to look into getting one.
Hopefully, our collection of life insurance statistics for the UK contained the insights you were looking for and gave you a big-picture view of the sector.
My name is Marija, and I'm a financial writer at DontDisappointMe. Although finance might not be everyone's cup of tea, my 10+ years of working in one of the biggest banks in my country, and my interest in extensive research on everything finance/investment-related, have made me somewhat of an expert in the field (if I do say so myself). No longer having the passion to work in a corporate setting, I decided that I couldn't let all of this knowledge go to waste so I started writing. And, here I am! Today I try to share my knowledge with my audience in the hopes of making this topic as simple and interesting as possible. In my leisure time, I like spending time with my family and travelling to new locations.