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Voluntary life insurance sales grew 8 percent and supplemental health insurance sales grew 4 percent to boost overall group employee-funded benefit sales in 2015, according to LIMRA’s U.S. Worksite Sales survey.

For the fifth straight year, voluntary sales have increased.  This is the largest increase for voluntary life sales since 2010, which was also the last time that these products grew faster than the voluntary health offerings.

The fastest growing voluntary health lines were critical illness(CI) and accident insurance, both of which have experienced double-digit growth for five consecutive years.  Two-thirds of the companies that participated in the LIMRA survey reported overall increases in voluntary sales, with half up 12 percent or more.

Rising employment figures are likely contributing to these positive results. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that private employers have added 14.3 million jobs to their payrolls in the 72 months since February 2010, an average of 198,000 jobs a month. 

Additional reasons may be found in other LIMRA worksite research:

• 71 percent of employers believe voluntary benefits improve worker morale and satisfaction
• Nearly 60 percent of employees prefer to buy health benefits at work and half prefer to buy life insurance through work
• Employees like payroll deduction and they trust their employer has done some vetting on the carriers that were selected.
• A long-term trend of employers shifting more benefits costs to employees

Voluntary insurance benefits are traditionally defined as insurance products made available through employers with employees having the option to purchase them or not. Employees who choose to purchase these products usually pay all of the premium cost through payroll deduction.

LIMRA’s Worksite Survey provides voluntary insurance product sales from 46 U.S. companies that participate in the survey and accounts for 23 of the top 25 companies in the market.