Email Marketing Best Practices for the Life Insurance Industry
What Works, What Doesn’t, and How to Stay Ahead in 2026 and Beyond
In the life insurance industry, staying top-of-mind with agents, advisors, and clients means delivering the right message at the right time. Email marketing remains one of the most effective channels for this—direct, trackable, and cost-effective—but only when executed with precision and strategy.
At Apis Productions, we’ve analyzed results from over 300 campaigns for our clients in 2024 and 2025, combining our data with broader industry benchmarks from sources like Mailchimp, Mailerlite, HubSpot, and etc. While social media and video content dominate headlines, email offers reliable inbox delivery, bypassing unpredictable algorithms. Industry averages show open rates around 29-42%, with insurance often performing stronger (up to 70% in optimized cases), and click-thru-rates (CTRs) typically between 1.6-2.8%, though targeted efforts can push beyond 5%.
Our campaigns, focused on targeting BGAs, carriers, and agents, have consistently achieved:
- 30%+ open rates for high-value topics like Long-Term Care (LTC) and annuities, aligning with or exceeding industry medians.
- CTRs of 10%+ with compelling call-to-actions (CTAs), building on averages closer to 2% for unoptimized sends.
- Sustained engagement from educational content and webinars, helping keep unsubscribe rates low (industry ~0.2%).
The takeaway? Email isn’t outdated. It’s under-optimized. Below, we outline proven strategies, drawing from our experience and external data, to help you refine your approach.
1. Prioritize Compliance and List Hygiene
A strong foundation is essential in a regulated industry like life insurance. Emails must adhere to CAN-SPAM, HIPAA (for health data), GLBA, and state regulations to prevent fines or trust erosion. Always secure explicit consent via double opt-ins.
Best Practices:
- Encrypt sensitive info like PII or PHI in emails.
- Clean lists quarterly: Remove inactives (no opens in 6 months) and bounces (undeliverables) to boost deliverability.
- Include prominent unsubscribe links, physical addresses, and privacy notices.
- Regularly audit for compliance, especially on policy or claims discussions.
At Apis, we emphasize this in every client setup, as poor hygiene has derailed even the best content.
2. Focus on High-Impact Topics Your Audience Cares About
Content relevance drives results. In life insurance, evergreen topics tied to advisor (or audience) needs perform best.
From our 2024-2025 campaigns and industry data:
- Long-Term Care (LTC): Open rates 25-30%, CTRs up to 27% for webinar invites.
- Annuities: Consistent 31% opens, fueled by rate updates.
- Webinars & Educational Content: Up to 79% opens in our top performers, comparable to insurance highs of 70%.
What Doesn’t Work: Repetitive product announcements without added value, yielding CTRs under 1%.
3. Craft Subject Lines That Demand Attention
The subject line is your first (and often only) impression. Keep them under 60 characters, infusing urgency, specificity, or emotion.
- Urgency: “24 Hours Until LTC Refresher Course”
- Specificity: “Weekly Annuity Rates – October 21, 2025”
- Emotion: “Caregiving: The Reality You Can’t Ignore”
What Doesn’t Work: Bland lines like “Monthly Update,” dropping opens by 10-20%.
4. Choose the Right Format: Eblasts vs. Newsletters
Match format to objective for optimal impact. We analyzed 62 eblasts and 26 newsletters:
- Eblasts: 27.2% opens, 2.8% CTRs—ideal for single-focus actions.
- Newsletters: 31.2% opens, 2.4% CTRs—great for relationship nurturing.
What Doesn’t Work: Misaligning formats, like using newsletters for urgent CTAs, which scatters focus.
5. Segment, Personalize, and Optimize Technically
Relevance skyrockets with segmentation: Our segmented campaigns hit 44%+ opens, vs. mid-20s for broad ones.
- Go beyond “Hi [Name]”—match content to behaviors (e.g., “Based on your LTC focus…”).
- Ensure accessibility: Alt text, clear fonts for diverse audiences.
- Track holistically: Bounces (<2%), unsubscribes, and ROI.
6. Strengthen CTAs for Action
No campaign succeeds without guiding the next step. Use vivid, benefit-focused prompts.
The Apis Perspective: From Process to Performance
One of our long-term life insurance clients built success through disciplined list management with regular updates, inactivity purges, and quality focus over quantity. Their campaigns avoided repetition by mixing formats: short videos on product changes, podcast links for industry insights, downloadable PDFs/flyers, and webinar invites with easy registration.
This approach, which we’ve refined across BGA, agent, and other partners, streamlines processes while delivering variety to curb email fatigue and yield measurable gains. At Apis Productions, we specialize in these tailored strategies, turning data into actionable campaigns that drive real results.
Planning for 2026: Emerging Trends and Strategies
As we look toward 2026, email marketing in life insurance must evolve with advancing technology, shifting regulations, and audience expectations. Key strategies to prioritize include:
- Advanced AI Personalization: Leverage AI for predictive content, such as anticipating policy renewal needs or customizing based on behavioral data, potentially boosting engagement by 20-30%.
- Enhanced Interactive Elements: Incorporate dynamic features like embedded polls, interactive calculators, or AMP-enabled emails to foster deeper user interaction and higher retention.
- Heightened Privacy and Compliance Focus: With ongoing updates to data laws, build trust through transparent practices, zero-party data collection, and robust security measures to maintain deliverability.
- Seamless Omnichannel Integration: Combine email with SMS, apps, and social channels for unified customer journeys, ensuring consistent messaging across touchpoints.
- Sophisticated Automation: Implement triggered campaigns for personalized milestones (e.g., anniversary policy reviews) while balancing automation with human oversight to avoid over-saturation.
Potential Pitfalls to Avoid: Relying too heavily on automation without testing for personalization, or overlooking advanced metrics like share/forward rates, which can signal true audience resonance.
