The Life Insurance Carrier Growth Problem Is Real. But It’s Also Fixable
A recent McKinsey & Company Global Insurance Report 2025 makes something very clear:
life insurance growth has lagged GDP for years, relevance has eroded, and traditional strategies are no longer enough.
You can read the report here:
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/global-insurance-report-2025-growth-and-relevance-in-life-and-beyond
McKinsey’s analysis goes deeper than surface-level sales numbers. It highlights a structural challenge facing life insurers across developed markets. While premiums may rise due to pricing, interest rates, or asset growth, true organic growth in lives covered, policies sold, and sustained engagement has remained stubbornly low.
The report points to several forces reshaping the landscape. Consumers are living longer, forming families later, and increasingly viewing financial protection through a holistic lens rather than a single-product purchase. At the same time, life insurance often competes internally with wealth, retirement, and investment solutions for attention and resources. The result is an industry that knows protection matters but struggles to position it clearly and confidently in a crowded financial conversation.
McKinsey also underscores that many carriers remain overly reliant on legacy distribution models and episodic sales activity. Product launches outpace field adoption. Advanced planning capabilities are concentrated in small pockets rather than scaled broadly. Leadership attention is divided across too many initiatives, diluting execution.
The conclusion is clear. Growth will not return through incremental tweaks. It requires intentional reinvention of how life insurance is distributed, led, and delivered.
Where Growth Has Stalled
Across the industry, the patterns are consistent:
• Flat to low single digit organic growth
• Declining policy counts despite rising awareness
• Distribution forces working harder for the same results
• Product innovation outpacing field adoption
This is not a product problem alone.
It is a distribution, leadership, and focus problem.
How Big Ridge Helps Reignite Double-Digit Growth
At Big Ridge Consulting, we partner with carriers, IMOs, BGAs, and field leaders who are done settling for industry average.
Our work is built around one outcome:
sustained, repeatable double-digit growth that shows up in production, not just strategy decks.
Here is how we help make that happen:
1. Distribution Precision
We identify where growth actually comes from and build systems that scale top producers, emerging leaders, and under-leveraged segments.
2. Leadership That Drives Production
Growth accelerates when leadership capability increases. We develop field leaders who recruit better, coach better, and execute advanced sales consistently.
3. Advanced Sales as a Core Engine
Double-digit growth occurs when advanced planning stops being episodic and becomes embedded in culture, cadence, and confidence across the field.
4. Focus Over More Initiatives
Most organizations do not need more programs.
They need fewer priorities, clearer scorecards, and disciplined execution.
The Bottom Line
Industry stagnation is not permanent.
But growth will not return by waiting on interest rates, new products, or better technology.
It returns when distribution gets sharper, leadership gets stronger, and execution becomes non-negotiable.
That is the work we do every day at Big Ridge.
If your organization is ready to move beyond incremental gains and build a real path to double-digit growth, let’s talk.
bigridgeconsulting.com
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