It's that time again to tell you, in a series of articles, about our voluntary market sales results. To sum it up, it's good news: The industry had another solid year.

According to our annual U.S. Voluntary/Worksite Sales Report, new business annualized premium (voluntary sales) was $6.644 billion in 2013, which represents an increase over 2012.

However, due to several new companies and other companies changing the way they report voluntary sales, it was difficult to determine the actual percentage increase. Using just those companies that were in the study both years and had the same reporting methodology, we estimate the increase over 2012 to be about 4.3 percent. The following graph shows the industry's sales since 1998.