The 200,000-plus U.S. deaths and uncertainty associated with the Covid-19 crisis have not moved people to run out and buy life insurance, according to the J.D. Power 2020 U.S. Life Insurance Study, released today.

The study, based on responses from 5,469 individual life insurance customers and 3,674 annuity customers and fielded from June through August, found that the number of customers without life insurance who considered purchasing a policy remained largely static, hovering around 40%, during the during the height of the pandemic in March and April.

At the same time, a majority (70%) of life insurance customers said their perceptions of their life insurance provider were unchanged by current events.

Customer satisfaction overall for life insurance providers scored 763 (on a 1,000-point scale), up just two points from 2019; and annuity customer satisfaction scored 778, also two points higher than last year.

Robert M. Lajdziak, senior consultant of insurance intelligence at J.D. Power, said there is a significant perception problem plaguing the life insurance industry. “In the throes of a pandemic, consumers naturally should be more engaged with their insurer—but they aren’t,” he said in a statement.

“We’ve been observing a trend for several years that customer satisfaction with life insurance companies starts declining the moment a policy is purchased and continues to decline throughout the relationship due to a lack of policyholder contact from most insurers. The fact that insurers and agents have not been able to reverse this trend during a historic global pandemic speaks to the depth of the challenge the industry faces. Life insurance providers need to dramatically ratchet up their client communications efforts and demonstrate their value to their end customers—not just to advisors and sales representatives,” Lajdziak added.

The study found that customers who owned a life insurance policy for less than five years have the highest overall level of satisfaction with their policy (803). But scores fall among customers with a tenure of six to 10 years; by 45 points among those who have been customers for 11 to 20 years; and by 56 points among customers with a tenure of more than 20 years.

Annuity customer satisfaction has remained relatively stable across tenure segments, increasing among higher-tenured customers, but influenced in those later years due to customers beginning to receive payments, the study noted.

Among life insurers, the study found that State Farm ranks highest among individual life insurance providers with a score of 838. Globe Life (810) ranks second and Nationwide (803) ranks third.

As for annuity providers, Nationwide and New York Life rank highest in a tie among annuity providers, each with a score of 802. American Equity Investment Life Insurance (801) ranks third.

The 2020 U.S. Life Insurance Study measures the experiences of customers of the largest life insurance and annuity companies in the U.S. It measures overall customer satisfaction based on performance in six factors: application and orientation, communications, interaction, price, product offerings and statements.