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By 
October 10, 2022 at 10:49 AM
What You Need to Know
- Despite a resurgence of COVID-19 in Europe and an Ebola outbreak, life insurance activity is still down.
- One reason may be the difficulty life insurers have been experiencing hiring and training new agents since the start of the pandemic.
Inflation, market gloom and a scarcity of life insurance agents cast a shadow over U.S. life insurance application activity in September.
Overall application activity was 7.8% lower last month than in September 2021, according to MIB Group’s new U.S. application activity report.
The news about falling application rates comes as COVID-19 case counts are rising sharply in Europe, and a deadly Ebola outbreak has infected about 63 people and killed at least 29 since Sept. 20, according to the World Health Organization.
What It Means
Some life insurers that focus on selling protection insurance to “middle-market” customers reported having trouble with hiring and training new agents from the start of the pandemic until earlier this year.
That hiring slump might have contributed to the sales chill caused by the effects of rising prices and headlines about stock market turmoil.
You may need to take extra steps to make sure that clients have a suitable amount of life insurance to protect their families against a sudden surge in COVID-19, or even a wave of Ebola cases.
MIB
MIB is a Braintree, Massachusetts-based organization that helps life insurers process the information used in underwriting applications for life insurance and other products.
