According to the latest stats from MIB Group Inc, consumers 71 and older continue to remain active in the individual life insurance policy application market in the United States. The activity report for new individual life applications highlights trends across all age groups. Understanding these various aging population trends is important in keeping up with the latest activity involving whole life insurance and universal life insurance.
Overall, application value for individual life insurance slightly increased by 0.5% within the last year between June 2020 and June 2021. This number was down by 1.9% from the previous month of May.
Life Agents and Policy Appraisals for Their Older Seniors
The year-over-year growth for a senior citizen’s consumer individual life application was 4.3% in June, down from the 5.2% in May. However, the 71 and older age group shows the most substantial application activity for the third consecutive month.
Life Insurance Application Trends
MIB produced a public report highlighting the life insurance policy application activity stats in June broken down by each age group. Here is an overview of these figures.
• Ages 30 and Under – 3.3% Decrease
• Ages Between 31-50 – 1.1% Increase
• Ages Between 51-60 – 0.8% Increase
• Ages Between 61-70 – 3.6% Increase
• Ages 71 and Up – 4.3% Increase
Overall, the increase in application activity across most age groups may be due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aging population trends for people 71 and older show that they use life insurance for estate planning and long-term care planning.
However, some companies tightened sales and the life insurance underwriting rules for older Americans during the early stages of COVID-19 due to concerns about the potential effect of the pandemic on senior citizens.
Due to the pandemic, many of these life insurance agents minimized the number of in-person meetings and focused more on automated and web-based meetings.
Whole life insurance and universal life insurance sales are beginning to get closer to the pre-pandemic figures in the last few months. The constant ups and downs for universal life and whole life insurance may have resulted in greater demand for life insurance applications for anyone 71 years of age or older.
Trends for Policy Size
MIB didn’t offer any detailed figures related to the types of products that created a greater level of life insurance application activity in June. However, the report did show that life insurance application activity levels for policies including death benefits less than $250,000 and more than $500,000 were more significant than in June 2020. On the other hand, the life insurance application activity level for policies including death benefits between $250,000 to $500,000 was down.
Closing Thoughts
Application activity for consumers at age 30 and below continues to slide while activity levels for all older age groups continue to grow. Small and big policies continue to be a more popular option compared to midsize policies. Insurance agents need to seek policy appraisals for senior citizens that are looking for more or new insurance. This can be an excellent opportunity to put money in motion by selling underperforming life insurance policies. Ultimately, staying up to date with these activity levels for whole life insurance and universal life insurance is important in keeping up with these trends impacting the life insurance industry.
