Fewer people applied for life insurance in the United States in March than in the same month last year.

photo_web_1283According to the Medical Information Bureau (MIB) Life Index, which measures application activity for individually underwritten life insurance in the US, the demand for individually underwritten life insurance dropped by 3% year-over-year, all ages combined. However, the MIB notes that this is the first monthly decline in year-over-year application activity since June 2014, and that the Life Index is still up by 1.5% for 2015.

As has been the case in previous months, the 60 and over age group posted the strongest gains, up by 1.4% compared to March 2014. Application activity for ages 0 to 44 and 45 to 59 declined by 4.5% and 2.7% compared to the same month last year.