Canadian life insurance application activity in May 2021 continued to recover from COVID-19 declines in 2020 with Year-To-Date (YTD) activity reaching +6.4% and Year-Over-Year (YOY) activity climbing to +20.5%, according to the Canadian MIB Life Index. These comparisons are impacted by a significant drop in April and May activity in 2020 attributable to the pandemic. When comparing May 2021 to pre-COVID activity in May 2019, activity is down -5.3% YTD and -11.7% YOY.

Life Index ChartAll age groups experienced YOY increases in May, with ages 0-60 and 71+ showing double digit increases. Ages 0-30 grew by +23.4%, ages 31-50 by +25.1%, ages 51-60 by +10.4%, ages 61-70 by +6.9% and ages 71+ by +17.3%. On a YTD basis, all age groups were at growth in May, with the exception of ages 51-60 where growth was flat.

May saw double digit growth YOY across all face amounts with the most sizeable gain (>50%) for face amounts over $1M up to and including $5M. When looking at age bands, double digit YOY growth was seen for ages 0‑50 for all face amounts, ages 51-60 for face amounts over $500K and ages 61-70 for face amounts over $250K up to and including $5M. For ages 71+ triple digit growth was seen for face amounts over $500K up to and including $1M and for face amounts of $2.5M up to and including $5M, while double digit growth was seen in all other face amounts over $250K.

When examining activity patterns where a product type was submitted to MIB, we see YOY growth in May for all product types with Term Life up 2.9%, Universal Life up +67.5% and Whole life up +25.2%. Continuing a trend seen in previous months, younger ages 0-30 saw declines in Term Life in favor of Universal Life, which grew in the triple digits and Whole Life, which grew in double digits YOY. For ages 31-50, there was YOY growth across all products with double-digit growth for Term Life and Whole Life and triple digit growth for Universal Life. Ages 51-60 saw flat activity for Term Life and double-digit growth for both Universal Life and Whole Life. Ages 61-70 saw growth for Term Life, double digit growth for Whole Life and a double-digit decline for Universal Life. Ages 71+ saw double digit growth for Term Life and Whole Life along with flat activity for Universal Life.

About 36% of total Life Index volume for Canada in May did not include a product type. We believe the vast majority of these submissions are for Life Insurance applications and have included them in the composite analysis presented in this report. Missing product type information has a significant impact on Canadian analysis. Growth varies when looking solely at submissions identified as for Life Insurance products, with activity up +16.2% YOY for Canada in May 2021 and up +12.8% YTD.

NOTE: Due to frequent missing information regarding the applicant's country of residence, effective January 2021 we are now identifying Canadian activity based on the company country.

Contact: Betty-Jean Lane, MIB Group, Inc., 781-980-0017, BLane@mib.com