Individual life insurance sales in the United States increased by 7 percent in the second quarter this year, with the first half of the year posting a 9 percent gain, according to LIMBRA, a global insurance research and consulting firm.

Although insurance companies see it as encouraging, the growth is in comparison to the first half of 2009 when life insurance sales plummeted at the steepest rate in almost 70 years. Still, 80 percent of the top 20 companies were up, and almost half experienced double-digit growth during the first half of this year, LIMRA Senior Analyst Ashley Durham said in a media statement.

Whole life insurance was up 23 percent in the second quarter, the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, while universal life premiums grew 11 percent.

Products with death benefit guarantees were up 5 percent, and non-guaranteed universal life sales were up 26 percent, due mostly to sale of indexed products, which jumped almost 40 percent for the quarter and 45 percent for the first half of the year. Variable universal life insurance premium grew 2 percent for the second quarter, posting a 6 percent increase for the first half of the year.

Term life insurance was the only product posting a decline. New annualized premium for term life fell 11 percent for the quarter, the sharpest drop since 2001, LIMRA said.