MIB Life Index: April Life Insurance Activity Up a Tick

May 11, 2012 at 06:23 AM

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Application activity in the U.S. for individually underwritten life insurance continued on a positive trajectory in April, up 0.6% for all ages combined when compared with the same period last year.

MIB Group Inc., a Braintree, Mass.-based provider of life and health insurance information published the statistics in their latest monthly MIB Life Index. The index measures the industry's application activity in the U.S., and is based on the number of searches MIB life member company underwriters perform on the MIB Checking Service database.

This is the second month in row that application level activity has been subject to relative stasis after months of strong growth from December 2011 to February 2012. Year-to-date, the index is up 3.3% when compared with the same four month period last year.

April's application activity did decline 6.6% from March but MIB cautioned that this drop was consistent with seasonal activity for the time period.

U.S. application activity broken down by age group for April shows that for ages 0-44, application activity was down 0.8%; ages 45-59 was down 0.5%; ages 60 and up was up, 6.8%, year-over-year. When the strong growth at the end of last year and beginning of this year is factored in all age groups remain in positive territory year to date: ages 0-44, up 1.7%; ages 45-59 up 2.5%; 60 and up, up 10.3% year-over-year.

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