In an interview with The Insurance Journal, as part of its report on term insurance in the July 2025 issue, Mike Stocks, Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer at Empire Life, pointed out that 45% of Gen Zers, 33% of Millennials and 32% of Gen Xers say they lack insurance. By way of comparison, overall, 31% of Canadians expressed this sentiment.
The information comes from LIMRA's 2024 Insurance Barometer Study, based on Canadian statistics for 2023. LIMRA's annual survey focuses on the U.S. market, but occasionally includes data on the Canadian market, as was the case in its 2024 edition.
This will not be the case for the 2025 Insurance Barometer Study. " We don’t conduct the Canadian Barometer or ownership studies annually. We will update the Canadian ownership study in 2026 and the Canadian Insurance Barometer in 2028. For now, the 2023 results are the latest," LIMRA spokesperson Catherine Theroux told Insurance Portal.
Mike Stocks nevertheless believes that this data remains relevant. In his view, the 2024 barometer and other recent LIMRA studies have revealed a significant shift in the younger generation's attitude to buying insurance. "Millennials who pre-COVID were the least likely to want to interact with a financial advisor are now the cohort that's most likely to want to speak to an advisor to get advice," he observes.
In this sense, Stocks cited LIMRA barometer data showing that 46% of Millennials seek information online, but buy in person from an insurance agent or other financial professional.
He also notes a psychological trait of this generation. “Millennials tend to want to really understand how things work and ask the question “why” more than others do. They want to understand the rationale for recommendations.”
The younger generation's enthusiasm for seeking advice suggests a growing market for advisors. In its Feb. 21, 2024 issue of The Daily, Statistics Canada revealed that the demographic weight of Millennials and Generation Z is increasing, while that of Baby Boomers and Generation X is decreasing. For the first time, as of July 1, 2023, the Millennial generation makes up a larger share of the population than the Baby Boomer generation, Statistics Canada has revealed.
On April 1, 2025, Canada's population reached 41,548,787, according to The Daily released by Statistics Canada on June 18, 2025.
Low pricing
Because mortality risk is lower with term insurance, insurers usually price it at a lower level than permanent insurance. Mike Stocks encourages advisors to capitalize on this argument to appeal to the younger generation.
"We've got a fantastic product portfolio that appeals to the family protection market. Our rankings are very strong, in the top three 100% of the time," Stocks says of the insurer’s term insurance.
" We have our digital application process called Fast & Full. Approximately 62% of our applications are settled in 5 days or less. Once it gets submitted, it could go through and get automatically approved and issued in as little as 24 hours," he adds, referring to Empire Life products in general.
Reaching the middle class
Mark Arruda, Assistant Vice-President, Product Management, Sun Life, says the insurer is reaching the mid-market primarily through Sun Life's career sales force and direct channels. He points out that exclusive advisors tend to focus on this market.
Consumers can also purchase Sun Life Go Term Life Insurance online. Arruda took the opportunity to highlight a Sun Life distribution that he described as a hybrid, Prospr By Sun Life. Launched in 2022, this network enables customers to access advice or validate their product choices by telephone or videoconference.
Arruda also emphasizes the contribution of the independent network of managing general agents, national accounts (insurance arms of securities firms) and independent advisors. “These channels tend to be more high-net-worth,” he adds.
Protecting income
Term insurance is about income protection.
– Mark Arruda
Arruda puts forward an argument in favour of buying term insurance, a topic on which he has already written several articles. " Term insurance is about income protection. If the person were to die, their income would stop. People do everything in their lives with their income. They buy goods, they pay their mortgages, they fund school for their kids, they save for their retirement. All of that is done with their income," underlines Arruda.
Jim Ruta, an advisor Coach and president of Advisorcraft, and regular columnist with the Insurance Journal, in a blog published on May 27 discussed the importance of presenting customers with what they want, rather than a product.
“Present your advice as the fulfillment of what your prospects want:
- No one buys a comprehensive financial plan; they buy peace of mind knowing that they’ll be okay whatever happens
- Not a term life policy but a cancelled mortgage on their death so their surviving family can live rent free,” writes Ruta.
For his part, advisor Mark Halpern talked about the hidden power of term insurance, in his series The ONE Thing on May 27, 2025. Buying it, he says, is like renting life insurance. It's “affordable, simple and covers you for a set period.”
It “becomes increasingly expensive after each renewal and can be converted at any time into permanent life insurance without a medical,” he writes.
In one of his examples, Halpern talks about “protecting your family”:
- “David, 35, is a father of two and owns a successful marketing agency.
- He takes out a $1 million, 20-year term policy at $52 a month to ensure his wife and kids are covered.
- If something happens to him, they get a tax-free $1M payout to replace lost income.
- By the time he reaches age 55 (where premiums will rise to $800/month), his kids are grown, and his investments can cover his family’s needs. He may not need term coverage any longer and may consider converting his policy into permanent coverage.”
As Mark Halpern said when he spoke at the 2019 Canada Sales Congress, "Your family, The government or charity. You can only pick two of the three. Which two do you choose?
Organized by the Insurance Journal Publishing Group, the next Canada Sales Congress will be held in Toronto on September 30, 2025.
This article is a Magazine Supplement of the July issue of the Insurance Journal.
