Less people are buying life insurance
Life insurance is one of those subjects
that most people put off thinking about
until they have to. It can be a very confusing
thing if one knows nothing about policies
or the different
types of insurance that is available
to consumers. The amount of people buying
life insurance has pretty much been
increasing for the last five or so years.
But officials have been seeing less and
less people taking out life
insurance policies. According to a July
21, 2006 article from the PR Newswire Europe
and posted on Insurance News.net, United
States life insurance activity was off 5.4
percent in June.
The article, “North American Life
Insurance Activity off 5.4% in June gives
the intriguing figures that show that less
people are buying policies and life insurance
products in the U.S.
“North American application activity
for individually underwritten life insurance
was off -5.4% in June year-over-year, the
largest change in the last four consecutive
years of June declines, according to the
MIB Life Index(SM). June-over-June changes
for the 2002-2006 period have averaged -3.3%.
Year-to-date (YTD), U.S. and Canadian application
activity was off -2.9% year-over-year, as
compared to this past May's -2.4% YTD change,”
according to the article.
These numbers show that the amount of people
buying
life insurance policies right now is
not nearly as much as was purchased in years
past. The numbers are also down in Canada
as well.
Not only are the life insurance numbers
down in general but it seems to be consistent
throughout all of the age groups, meaning
pretty much every age bracket is not buying
as much as they were before.
“U.S. application activity was off
-5.7% in June year-over-year, all ages combined.
Declines were consistent across all three
age groups: -5.7%, -5.9% and -5.5% for ages
0-44, 45-59 and age 60+, respectively compared
to same period 2005. YTD U.S. applications
were down -3.0% versus same period 2005.
Activity in the second quarter (Q2) 2006
was -4.4% behind Q2 last year, which compares
unfavorably to the first quarter's -1.8%
decline over Q1 2005.”
