Two thirds of insurance firms are now looking for new products or services to introduce to their distribution channels in the year, finds an industry sample conducted by the Inter-Company Marketing Group, a business-networking nonprofit organization.

According to the 53 respondents, the most common insurance products are life insurance, cancer or critical illness, annuities, Medicare-related products and property-casualty insurance.

Of the respondents, seven of 10 already offer noncore products and services to their distribution channel from either outside or in-house sources. Insurance firms primarily offer noncore insurance products because of product diversification, cross-selling and agent recruitment.