This paper analyzed the determinants of life insurance consumption with a panel of 92 countries over the period 1996-2010. Our main focus was to figure out the effect of national culture, quality of institutions and legal origins on the consumption of life insurance. Most cultural, institutional, legal and other control variables had a significant relationship to life insurance consumption, in most conditions. Our panel estimations revealed that countries with higher individualism, higher uncertainty avoidance and higher masculinity oriented society have greater level of life insurance consumption. Overall, the cross-country results confirmed the importance of national culture in predicting life insurance across countries. We also discovered that as the quality of institution enhanced, the life insurance consumption increased. As for the importance of legal origins for life insurance across countries, evidence for support has been found in our research. The results revealed a strong, positive relationship between U.K. legal origin and life insurance consumption. However, there was a negative relationship between France and German’s legal origin and insurance consumption.