The life insurance industry saw its sixth straight month of year-over-year application increases, the longest sustained trend of U.S. increases on record, according to a new analysis.

U.S. application activity for individually underwritten life insurance increased 1.2% in January, compared to January 2009, according to the MIB Life Index.

Monthly year-over-year increases began, after a number of down months, according to the report.

However, application activity for the period December 2009 to January 2010 remained flat, with at 0.1% increase.

As has been the trend, activity among people age 60 and up increased 15.2% in January, compared to the same period last year. The age group has now shown year-over-year, double-digit growth in 10 consecutive months, according to the MIB Life Index.

Other age groups did not show similar gains. People age 0-44 saw a 2.5% decline, while ages 45-59 showed a modest gain, at 2.5%.