Americans are ‘panic buying’ life insurance due to coronavirus pandemic
- Many firms have noted double-digit increases in the number of life insurance policies they’ve sold during the Covid-19 pandemic relative to last year.
- The increase is largely due to a fear of death and greater awareness of financial risks associated with mortality, experts said.
- Insurance sales have been dwindling for years. In 2020, just over half of American adults reported having a life insurance policy, down from 63% a decade earlier.
© Provided by CNBC
Life insurance is enjoying something of a renaissance as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Load Error
Consumers, especially younger adults, have been buying insurance in elevated numbers since the spring, when thousands of Americans began getting ill and dying from Covid-19.
That result is logical, experts said, given the core use of life insurance: as a financial backstop in the event of death.
More from Smart Tax Planning:
12 million people asked the IRS