Generation X may need more information about life insurance policies

In recent years, the life insurance market has changed dramatically, and many companies are now starting to focus a little more on attracting younger people while also trying to retain their older clientele. But that might leave the age group in the middle out of the running to some extent.

There may still be a need to target people in their 40s or even 50s when it comes to life insurance because those people may still be marrying for the first time, or starting families, and have need of such coverage, according to a report from the consumer financial advice site Nerdwallet. But at the same time, they might not be seen as the “ideal” target audience for life insurers because the younger members of Generation X may, like their millennial counterparts, only just now be getting back to having more financial stability, and having a need for life coverage because of major life changes.

And as these people age, the costs they face are going to change – and potentially grow – rapidly, the report said. People who put off having kids until their late 30s or early 40s are likely to be close to retirement age, or at least the point at which they should be thinking about that time, when they're going to have to start paying for college and other major expenses.

Where life insurance comes in
As a consequence, the reasons that life insurance may not have been purchased by those people in the past may need to be smoothed over for these middle-aged would-be customers in much the same way it would for younger adults, the report said. As recent polls show, most people tend to dramatically overestimate the cost of life insurance coverage, especially because they might not think of term life as being a viable financial option for them.

While an improving economy in and of itself is likely to bring at least some people back to the fold, the fact of the matter is that millennials and those in Generation X may not be as amenable to buying such coverage overall. For these reasons, the efforts on the part of insurers to highlight just how affordable such coverage can be may end up going a long way toward helping people feel like this is a reasonable option for them going forward.