Personal finance shows and life insurance marketing programs aimed at older men may be shoving U.S. men ages 71 and older into life insurers' arms.
The same forces seem to be having a similar, but smaller, effect on U.S. women ages 71 and older.
Older men sent life insurers 23.5% more applications for individual life insurance applications in the first half of this year than in the first half of 2024, according to new application activity data from MIB Group.
Application activity increased 15.4% for older women.
The application level for people ages 61 through 70 has increased 4.7%, and the overall activity level has increased 1.7%.
For one age group — people ages 51 through 60 — activity fell 1.7%.
What it means: Clients may be more interested than they used to be in hearing about annuities, but clients ages 71 and older might be much more interested than they were in talking about life insurance.
MIB: MIB is a nonprofit organization that helps life insurers share some of the information used to vet coverage applicants.
MIB does not give the public information about the actual number of applications that flow through its systems, what percentage of the applications that life insurers approve or the percentage of applications that actually result in coverage sales.
But the MIB statistics give market players an early indicator of how the U.S. individual life market is performing.
Insurer strategies: The new MIB numbers could reflect life insurers' moves to ease some of the restrictions they imposed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, now that news about surges is tapering off.
Another factor could be life insurer moves to expand sales of life insurance policies that provide significant long-term care benefits.
Credit: ShuterStock
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