Since personal fiscal conservatism has made such a roaring comeback the past few months, it has opened an opportunity for the famously conservative life insurance industry to scoop up investors looking for “safe” investments like newly popular fixed annuities.

And many financially sound life companies are, indeed, trying to get out the message of the industry’s soundness – but few companies seem willing to say it too loudly.

“Insurance companies are being very cautious about what they say in the news, because there should be more surprises out there,” said Rachel Alt-Simmons, an analyst with Needham-based researcher TowerGroup.

After all, when American International Group got its bailout in September, analysts like Alt-Simmons had recommended other insurers hasten to reassure clients AIG was a lone exception to the industry’s overall solidity. The next few months, however, demonstrated that other insurers had troubles of their own.

So despite being better off than many famous financial giants, and even some of their troubled competitors within the industry, well-off insurers don’t want to toot their own horns too loudly, Alt-Simmons said, in case more financial fallout arrives and makes their assurances look premature.

Many insurers are trying to quietly reassure clients and investors that all is well via their Web sites or outreach programs that have advisers busily keeping in touch with worried investors, she said.

But a few companies have gone out of their way to distance themselves from the rest of the financial sector’s spectacular crashes: Travelers Insurance Group and MassMutual Financial Group, for example, publicly announced their “no thanks” response to getting federal bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

New York Life, a mutual company, bought full-page ads in national newspapers that read “We’re Main StreetÂ… Not Wall Street” and went on to describe the company’s resilience through historic financial crises going back to the panic of 1857.

“We look at this kind of advertising from time to time, the most recent was August 2007 when this financial crisis was already brewing,” said spokesman William Werfelman in an e-mail to Banker & Tradesman. “Several months ago, as the bad headlines of the financial crisis kept piling up, we began considering this type of ad again,” to tout the company’s strong financial position.

Peter Tedone, president and CEO of Windsor, Conn.-based VantisLife Insurance Co., said he’s seen the full-page ads from larger companies, but his own niche insurance outfit doesn’t see the need for any marketing push to reassure clients. Still, those clients do often want to know about the company’s soundness and what kind of investments it makes.

“It’s business as usual,” he said.

And while turbulence of other financial companies could spell a reaping of customers for insurers, the picture is decidedly mixed. Sales of conservative investments such as fixed annuities are booming, up by almost 50 percent this year over last, according to Connecticut-based life insurance researcher LIMRA. But sales of life insurance policies themselves are dropping: the same company reported an 11 percent dip in annual premiums this year.

Alt-Simmons said even if insurers are looking relatively solid compared to the rest of the financial industry, a sinking economy dampens the potential for any growth at a time like this.

That $30 a month spent on insurance premiums might start looking like too much money to a lot of people, she said.

“When it comes to groceries [versus] life insurance, you might, unfortunately, have to make a choice.”