Given that most U.S. workers do not buy sufficient life insurance, brokers and insurers have stepped up marketing efforts at the worksite, either on a voluntary group or individual basis.

Lydia Jilek, vice president of voluntary benefits and strategy at ING U.S. in Minneapolis, said she is seeing increased sales of individual life products due to the “recognition among employers that their employees are underinsured.”

When an employer offers life insurance on a voluntary basis, employees are more likely to purchase it than if they have to go through the trouble of arranging the purchase on their own, she said.

“We try to stress to employers that a lot of people don't buy life insurance on their own,” which is why they should offer it on a voluntary, employee-pay-all basis at the workplace, said Andrea Kinkade, president of Kaminsky & Associates Inc., a partner firm of United Benefit Advisors L.L.C. based in Maumee, Ohio.

She described a situation that she encountered several years ago in which a midsize employer provided only $20,000 in group life insurance to its employees.

“Nine months later, a young employee in his 30s died, leaving a wife and two or three young children, and all they had was a $20,000 life insurance benefit,” she said. After that incident, “the employer immediately added voluntary life” as an additional benefit option for employees.

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Unfortunately, when employees do buy life insurance through their employer, “they typically buy lower levels of coverage than they would when purchasing the coverage” on their own, Ms. Jilek said.

The availability of universal life on a group basis with a long-term care rider has led to increased sales of Allstate Benefits' worksite life insurance sales, said Greg Guidos, president of the Allstate Corp. subsidiary in Jacksonville, Fla.

“We're seeing double-digit growth rates in the universal life policy with an increasing percentage every year choosing the long-term care rider associated with it,” he said. While he cautioned that the policies are not a substitute for true long-term care insurance, “it is very affordable for people who might not be able to afford a full long-term care policy,” he said.