Summer Blahs Hit U.S. Individual Life Market

Indexed life: $686 million (+12%)

Whole life: $1.1 billion (-5.9%)

Fixed universal life: $105 million (+26%)

The numbers are based on survey responses from 103 insurers, including 49 indexed life providers, 58 universal life providers and 73 whole life providers.

The MIB Numbers

MIB — a Braintree, Massachusetts-based life insurance company consortium — provides systems that life insurers can use to share information for life insurance applicant underwriting purposes.

The group uses its own application-checking volume data to create the application activity index. Consumers filed 4.9% fewer applications for individual life insurance in August than they filed in August 2021, according to MIB data.

Activity was weakest for applicants ages 31 through 60, and it was weaker for cash-value life products than for term life products.

Here are the activity change figures, broken down by age group, for August:

Ages zero-30: -4.0%
Ages 31-50: -8.8%
Ages 51-60: -5.4%
Ages 61-70: +1.9%
Ages 71 and older: +7.7%

Here’s how activity changed, broken down by product type:

Term life: -2.1%
Universal life: -8.5%
Whole life: -9.6%

The COVID-19 Wildcard

One question is whether the current calm attitude about COVID-19 will persist or if a new surge in cases will lead to new interest in mortality.

The number of new COVID-19 hospitalizations and total U.S. excess rate death rate is now much lower than it was in the first quarter of the year, but comparable to what it was in the summer of 2021, before hospital admissions and deaths surged.

(Image: Adobe Stock)