(Credit: MIB)
U.S. life insurance application activity started to come back to earth in September.
MIB Group says its overall life application activity index was 4.4% higher in September than in September 2019.
That's the same as 4.4% average for the entire year to date, but it's down from a year-over-year increase of 14.1% in July, and a year-over-year increase of 9.1% in August.
Resources
- A copy of the latest MIB life application activity report is available here.
- A link to the Policygenius Life Insurance Price Index page is available here.
- An earlier article about the MIB life application activity figures is available here.
MIB is a Braintree, Massachusetts-based organization that helps life and health insurers share some of the information used in insurance underwriting. It bases its life application activity index on member organizations' application checking volume.
MIB publishes separate data for applicants in three age categories: ages 44 and younger: ages 45 through 59; and ages 60 and older.
Here are the MIB activity numbers for each age group for September:
- Ages 0-44: Up 7.2%
- Ages 45-59: Up 4.6%
- Ages 60 and older: Down 2.5%
One reason for the overall increase in activity may be the attention the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn to the need for life insurance.
Another may be that life insurers have expanded use of fast, simple, all-digital life insurance underwriting procedures, especially for younger consumers.
Older consumers' application activity level may be down partly because older consumers are reluctant to meet agents in person, and partly because life insurers have been slower to offer the new accelerated underwriting processes to older applicants.
