Life insurance application activity rose 0.3% in December

U.S. insurers may have received 0.3 percent more requests for individual life coverage this past December than in December 2015.

The Braintree, Massachusetts-based MIB Group Inc. says U.S. life insurers checked 0.3 percent more individually underwritten applications against its databases last month than they checked in the year-earlier month.

Related: Report: Unprecedented gains in 2015 U.S. life insurance activity

Overall application activity for the fourth quarter fell 1.2 percent, because application activity was weak in October and November.

Activity for the full year rose 1.3 percent.

Insurers created MIB in 1902, to give themselves a way to share information they could use to verify applications for coverage. The Federal Trade Commission reported in 1995 that it believed MIB was involved with the underwriting of 99 percent of life insurance policies and about 80 percent of disability insurance policies sold in the United States and Canada.

MIB breaks life application activity down by age.

Activity for consumers ages 0 to 44 increased 0.8 percent in December, when compared with December 2015, after being down for most of the rest of 2016.

Activity for consumers ages 45 to 59 fell 1.3 percent in December, year-over-year, and activity for consumers ages 60 and older rose 1.5 percent.

Lee Oliphant, MIB’s chief executive officer, said in a statement about the results that life insurers have been working hard to market to consumers under the age of 45.

Life insurers have been working hard to market to consumers under the age of 45. (Photo: iStock)