Applications for life insurance in Canada fell by 1.6% in January over the same month a year ago, according to the MIB Group Inc.’s Life IndexSM, which measures life insurance trends.

In the U.S., January applications fell 5.7%. Overall, North American applications declined 5.3% year-over-year.

Trending January activity over the past two years, application activity in the U.S. and Canada was off 12.5% and 5.5%, respectively, with January 2002 being a relatively active month based on the events of Sept. 11.

Compared with December, January applications in Canada were off 11.1% and off 15.2% in the U.S. For North America, the decline vs December was 14.8%.

According to index, North American application activity in January declined sharply in the age 59-and-under demographic and remain uncharacteristically flat in the 60-and-over age group.

Activity in the 0-44 age group declined 7.3% and 3.2% year-over-year in the U.S. and Canada, respectively; a decrease of 15.3% and 9.5% respectively compared to December 2003.

The 45-59 age group declined 4.1% and increased 1.7% year-over-year in the U.S. and Canada respectively; a decline of 16.2% and 13.5% respectively compared to December 2003.

Age 60-and-over was atypically level at 0.1% in the U.S., and showed a 1.4% increase in Canada year-over-year; declining sharply against last month’s activity at 12.3% and 16.5%, respectively.

Westwood, Mass.-based MIB is an association of more than 500 U.S. and Canadian life insurance companies that provides information and database management services to the financial services industry. The MIB Life Index measures life insurance industry trends.