Young Consumers' Life Application Activity Sinks Faster: MIB
The overall level of activity also fell.
U.S. life insurance application activity went back to normal in March: It fell — because consumers under age 60 stayed away.
Life activity increased from year-earlier levels in January and February, according to activity data from MIB Group Inc. Those were the first year-over-year increases MIB had reported since July 2018.
In March, MIB says, overall activity fell 4.9%.
(Related: Life Activity Continues to Move in a Strange Way)
In February, MIB says, activity increased a second time: Activity was 0.4% higher last month than in February 2018.
Application activity was much stronger at the beginning of the year for consumers ages 45 and older than for consumers under 45, and that trend continued into March.
Here’s how the year-over-year activity picture looked in March for the three major age groups MIB tracks:
- Ages 0-44: -9.1%
- Ages 45-59: -4.5%.
- Ages 60 and older: +7.6%.
The drop in activity for consumers under 45 is especially painful for U.S. life insurers, because they think of the younger consumers as their prime prospects.
“Younger age activity accounts for 53% of the total Life Index,” MIB said in a discussion of the results.
MIB is a nonprofit organization. MIB helps life insurers share information used to verify about 90% of the applications for life insurance and other medically underwritten products submitted in the United States, according to MIB data.
Resources
A copy of the latest MIB life activity update is available here.
— Read Where Did the Young Life Insurance Applicants Go?, on ThinkAdvisor.