According to our annual U.S. Voluntary/Worksite Sales Report,new business annualized premium (voluntary sales) for 2015 was$7.138 billion, up 3.6 percent over 2014 sales. The graph (belowleft) shows the industry's sales since 1997.

The voluntary market is one of the only insurance industrysegments that has seen consistent growth year over year. The onlyyear to see a decrease was 2010, and that was mostly due to theimpact of implementing — or trying to implement — Affordable CareAct provisions. The graph at the bottom of the page shows thegrowth curve between 2004 and 2015.

Based on our industry research with employers, employees,producers, and carriers, we expect sales to continue growing at a levelbetween 3 percent and 6 percent for the next few years.

In terms of market share, the top five carriers for 2015were:

• Aflac (21 percent)

• MetLife (9 percent)

• Unum (7 percent)

• Colonial Life (6 percent)

• Allstate Benefits (5 percent)

The top 15 carriers accounted for almost 78 percent of totalvoluntary sales in 2015. Thesecompanies in total achieved a 4.2 percent increase over 2014results, which is somewhat above the industry rate. Four carriershad decreases, and four had double-digit increases.

Takeover business (i.e., business that moves from one voluntarycarrier to another with a similar product) also increased in 2015,which has been the trend over the past several years. Last year,takeovers accounted for 53 percent of new sales, up from 51 percentin 2014 and 50 percent in 2013. The highest takeovers continue tooccur in the group term life and dental lines, but all lines areexperiencing takeovers.

In-force premium was also up, totaling an estimated $38.8billion in 2015, up 4 percent over 2014. The graphic below showsthe inforce sales numbers since 1997.

In our next column, we will review the results by product lineand product platform.