Life Application Activity Levels Off

• Individual life application volume rose 1.9% between May 2020 and May 2021, according to MIB Group Inc.’s new individual life application activity report.

In April, application activity climbed 10.7%.

MIB helps life insurers in the United States and Canada share some of the resources used to vet applications for life insurance and related products.

The Braintree, Massachusetts-based group uses its own application-checking activity data to compile the application activity reports. The statistics reflect the number of applications sent through MIB verification systems, not the number of final sales.

Younger Applicants Slink Away

MIB publishes separate life application activity figures for consumers in five different age groups.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began to lead to intense social distancing rules, in March 2020, application activity for older consumers fell sharply. That drop may have been due partly to a shift to web-based sales systems and partly due to changes in life insurers’ underwriting rules.

Since March, year-over-year comparisons for the oldest age group, for consumers ages 71 and older, have been strong.

Activity figures for the youngest consumers – those ages 30 and younger – also soared. Some hoped that increased use of fast, online life insurance underwriting programs would lead to steadily increasing young adult life insurance application activity.

This month, activity levels for consumers in both the youngest and oldest age groups fell sharply. Activity for the oldest consumers was still higher than it was a year earlier, but activity for the youngest consumers was down slightly.

Here are the age-group activity figures for May:

• Ages 0-30: Down 1.3%
• Ages 31-50: Up 2.6%
• Ages 51-60: Up 1.9%
• Ages 61-70: Up 4.1%
• Ages 71 and Older: Up 5.2%

Application activity for term life fell 4.7%. Application activity for universal life increased 9.5%.