RJ and Makay

>> Read More RJ & Makay Blog Posts

First-quarter 2012 life insurance underwriting activity was up 4.2% year-over-year, the industry’s best start since 2007, according to MIB Group Inc.’s MIB Life Index.  The index is the life insurance industry’s timeliest measure of U.S. application activity by age group and is based on the number of member company underwriter searches on the MIB Checking Service database.  MIB serves as the life and health insurance industry’s source of risk information and services.

Although the MIB Life Index shows that life insurance application activity fell 1.2% last year, that's actually good news. The decline is markedly smaller than the 3% reductions in life insurance application activity that occurred in each of the prior three years. Furthermore, there was a 9.4% increase in such activity in fourth quarter, the MIB Life Index shows.

“2010’s modest decline demonstrates resilience in the markets when compared to the past,” remarks Lee B. Oliphant, president and CEO of MIB, which reports on life insurance application activity each month. Although there were small overall declines in activity during the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2010, the life insurance industry has shed recession-period lows during the past six quarters, Oliphant reports.