What Happened to Life Application Activity in March Might Shock You
April 10, 2018 by Allison Bell
MIB Group Inc. says life insurance application activity was either pretty good in March or terrific, depending on the yardstick used.
MIB includes the number of business days in a month when calculating monthly life application activity levels. This year, March had two fewer business days in it than March 2017 had.
Because of the business day factor, MIB’s raw life application activity level was 6.8% higher this March than it was in March 2017.
Even after adjusting for the business day factor, the overall life application activity level was still up 1.9%, MIB says.
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The raw activity level was up for all three of the age groups that MIB tracks.
For people ages 0 to 44, the raw, unadjusted application activity level increased 6.8%.
For people ages 45 to 59, the raw activity level increased 6.4%.
For people ages 60 and older, the raw activity level increased 7%.
MIB is a Braintree, Massachusetts-based insurance industry group that collects data that life insurers can use to screen applications for life insurance and other forms of insurance for evidence of errors, or fraud. Issuers feed about 90% of medically underwritten applications through MIB systems.
Because of the effects of factors such as demographic shifts, low interest rates and regulatory changes, MIB has been reporting falling life application activity levels, or very small increases, for most months since mid-2016.
The 1.9% adjusted increase for this past March is the strongest monthly activity figure MIB has recorded since July 2016.
MIB life application activity increased 0.6% in the fourth quarter of 2017, but it fell 4.4% in January, and 2.4% in February.
