U.S. Life Application Activity Faces Tougher 2020 Comparisons: MIB
Activity for whole life insurance and for people ages 71 and older held up relatively well.
MIB Group’s U.S. individual life insurance application activity figures for July look bad because July 2020 was a good month for life application activity.
MIB talks about that problem in its latest life application activity update.
MIB is a Braintree, Massachusetts-based company that helps life insurers share some of the information used in life insurance underwriting. It uses its own application checking data to provide an early look at application volume trends.
MIB says application in July was 5.8% lower than in July 2020, partly because July 2020 was a month when COVID-19-related lockdowns were easing in many communities, life insurers and agents were getting more used to doing business online, and concerns about pandemic-related mortality were fresh in consumers’ minds.
Overall activity was about 14% higher in July 2020 than in July 2019.
In June, the MIB index was just 1.2% higher than in June 2019.
Activity for July 2021 is 7.2% higher than activity for July 2019, according to MIB.
Activity for all age groups was down, but activity for applicants ages 71 and older held up the best. Their application volume fell just 3.3%.
Application activity for whole life held up better than activity for term life and universal life coverage, and whole life activity was especially strong for applicants ages 31 through 70.
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(Image: CDC)