By The Numbers...

U.S. Life Insurance Company suffers 176% increase in payouts for Deaths among Young Adults in 2021 compared to 2019/2020 Average

Margaret Menge

The fifth largest life insurance company in the USA has confirmed it paid out $1.4billion in 2021 due to non-Covid related deaths among 18 to 64-year-olds. The amount represents a 176% increase since the Covid-19 injections were rolled out on the average payout for deaths over 2019 and 2020.

Five months after breaking the story of the CEO of One America insurance company saying deaths among working people ages 18-64 were up 40% in the third quarter of 2021, I can report that a much larger life insurance company, Lincoln National, reported a 163% increase in death benefits paid out under its group life insurance policies in 2021 compared to 2020. 

This is according to the annual statements filed with state insurance departments — statements that were provided exclusively to Crossroads Report in response to public records requests.

The reports show a more extreme situation than the 40% increase in deaths in the third quarter of 2021 that was cited in late December by One America CEO Scott Davison — an increase that he said was industry-wide and that he described at the time as “unheard of” and “huge, huge numbers” and the highest death rates that have ever been seen in the history of the life insurance business.

The annual statements for Lincoln National Life Insurance Company show that the company paid out in death benefits under group life insurance polices a little over $500 million in 2019, about $548 million in 2020, and a stunning $1.4 billion in 2021.

From 2019, the last normal year before the pandemic, to 2020, the year of the Covid-19 virus, there was an increase in group death benefits paid out of only 9 percent. But group death benefits in 2021, the year the vaccine was introduced, increased almost 164 percent over 2020.

Here are the precise numbers for Group Death Benefits taken from Lincoln National’s annual statements for the three years:

2019: $500,888,808

2020: $547,940,260

2021: $1,445,350,949

Here are the key numbers for 2021, below, shown on the company’s annual statement that was filed with the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services. These are national numbers, not state-specific:

Lincoln National is the fifth-largest life insurance company in the United States, according to BankRate, after New York Life, Northwestern Mutual, MetLife and Prudential.

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