Last month we reviewed the voluntary industry's overall salesfor 2012. Here we'll look at the sales by product line andplatform.

Life insurance overall showed a solid increase of slightly morethan 11 percent. Total life sales for 2012 were $1.546 billion.Term accounted for 72 percent of the total life NBAP (up from 68percent in 2011). Universal life/whole life had a decrease of 3percent while term life sales were up almost 18 percent.

Total disability sales were $1.263 billion, upalmost 14 percent over 2011. Disability sales accounted for 21percent of voluntary NBAP. Short-term disability sales accountedfor 66 percent of the disability totals, down from 70 percent lastyear. STD sales were up seven percent over 2011, but LTD sales wereup by 29 percent.

Accident sales accounted for 14 percent of total voluntary salesand, again this year, had a healthy increase of 12 percent comparedto 14 percent in 2011. Hospital indemnity/supplemental medical hada 10 percent share of the total sales, down from 13 percent in2011.

The line fell almost 17 percent, due to lower limited benefitmedical plan sales. Cancer sales were up about 3 percent from 2011while critical illness sales were up 17 percent. Critical illnesssales were $294 million while cancer sales were $437 million.

When we look at voluntary sales by product platform, group salesexceeded individual sales for the second year. The mix of sales byplatform was 56 percent group and 44 percent individual. The groupline grew at a rate of about nine percent while the individual linegrew at four percent. We anticipate that group sales will continueto outpace individual as more and more carriers are moving theirproducts to a group platform.

In our next column, we'll review the results by distributionsegment and wrap up with a few thoughts about the future.