Life insurance application activity was slightly up in the United States last month over October of 2013, but numbers are still down year to date.

According to the MIB Life Index, which measures application activity for individually underwritten life insurance in the US, the demand for individually underwritten life insurance rose 0.7% across all age groups in October, year-over-year. Growth has been below 1% for the last four months, and year to date activity is still down by 1.4%.

As has been the case in previous months, the age 60 and over demographic was the only one to post gains, with the number of applications up by 5.2% compared to the same month last year. Year over year activity in the 0 to 44 age group was flat with no gain or loss, and the 45 to 59 age group saw a year over year decline of 0.6%.

The year to date results were similar, with age 60 and older up by 2% while ages 0 to 44 and ages 45 to 59 posted declines of 2.4% and 1.7% respectively.