Q3 North American Results up a Lackluster 1.8%
(Westwood, Mass. � October 15, 2002) September applications for life insurance in North America increased 7.2% as compared to last year; U.S. and Canadian applications activity was up 6.4% and 14.1% respectively on a year-over-year basis. Some of September’s U.S. growth may be attributable to last year’s terrorist attacks which severely hampered overall economic activity.
For the third quarter 2002, U.S. life insurance application activity was unimpressive at 0.8%. Over the past six months, U.S. application activity has alternately flipped positive to negative, ultimately offsetting any gains and losses observed in the last two financial quarters.
Canada demonstrated significant third quarter growth with an increase of 10.8% compared to Q3 2001. Since January 2002, Canada has observed double digit, year over year growth in six of the last nine months.
According to The MIB Life IndexSM for September 2002, U.S. activity in the 60+ age group continues strong, with this past quarter marking the fourth consecutive quarter of growth for this age group compared to same quarter prior year.
“With one quarter remaining in 2002, U.S. application growth has been relatively unimpressive, while the Canadian market has shown significant application increases this year,” states Stacy J. Gill, Vice President and Chief Knowledge Officer at the MIB Group’s e-Services Corporation. “For the first three quarters of 2002, U.S. application growth is up slightly at 3.0% while growth in Canada has averaged 11.4% as compared with same period prior year,” says Gill.
The MIB Life Index
| Monthly Percent Change vs 2001 | |||
| US | Canada | Total | |
| September 2002 | 6.4% | 14.1% | 7.2% |
| August 2002 | -5.0% | 0.0% | -4.6% |
| Aug – Sept 2002 | 0.3% | 6.9% | 0.9% |
| Monthly Percent Change vs Previous Month | |||
| US | Canada | Total | |
| September 2002 | -3.3% | 8.5% | -2.2% |
About the MIB Life Index
The MIB Life Index is the life insurance industry’s timeliest measure of application activity across the U.S. Released to the media each month, the Index is based on the number of searches life member company underwriters perform on the MIB Checking Service database. Since the vast majority of individually underwritten life premium dollars in North America include an MIB search as a routine underwriting requirement, the MIB Life Index provides a reasonable means to estimate new business activity.
About MIB
MIB is the life and health insurance industry’s most trusted resource for risk information and analytical services. Owned by the industry it has served for more than a century, MIB is uniquely positioned to aggregate industry insights in order to develop products and services for our members that improve their risk management decisions. MIB, Inc. and MIB Solutions, Inc. are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the MIB Group, Inc. Visit www.mib.com.
