By Yi Whan-woo | The Korea Times | April 10, 2024<\/p>\n
Life insurance companies are progressively rolling out products aimed at covering medical expenses related to cancer, diseases, and other health threats amid a rapidly changing demographic landscape, according to industry officials, Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, these products are marketed by non-life insurers, allowing policyholders to derive lifelong benefits for maintaining a healthier lifestyle.<\/p>\n
In contrast, life insurers traditionally offer products where the benefits accrue to designated beneficiaries upon the policyholder’s death, in exchange for premiums paid during their lifetime.<\/p>\n
Under the circumstances, the new sales strategy of life insurance companies is perceived as an attempt to achieve a breakthrough in business amid challenging sales conditions caused by declining birth rates and an aging population.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese changes include lower birth rates, more single-person households and a fast aging society, which all suggest a decline in the number of customers in the long term and diminishing business potential,\u201d a spokesman for Kyobo Life Insurance said.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s overall fertility rate dropped to 0.72 in 2023 from 0.78 the previous year.<\/p>\n
The number of single-person households in Korea surpassed 10 million for the first time in March.<\/p>\n
By 2025, the country is widely expected to become a super-aged society, in which the proportion of those aged 65 and older will account for 20 percent of the total population.<\/p>\n
Three major market players \u2014 Samsung Life Insurance, Hanwha Life Insurance and Kyobo Life Insurance \u2014 accordingly introduced a total of seven products in the first quarter this year that cover the medical expenses of insured clients.<\/p>\n
The number of such products more than doubled from the previous year and also outnumbered ones introduced by the country\u2019s five major non-life insurers during the same period.<\/p>\n
The five are Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, DB Insurance, Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance, KB Insurance and Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance.<\/p>\n
Shin Seung-eun, an independent insurance sales agent, said more life insurers are asking her to promote their new products.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get the impression that they are dealing with the products with a sense of urgency,\u201d Shin said.<\/p>\n
The life insurers currently account for 28.7 percent of the non-life insurance market, and the remaining 71.3 percent is occupied by the non-life insurers.<\/p>\n
But industry sources said competition between life insurers and non-life insurers will intensify in the coming years.<\/p>\n
They noted that Samsung Life Insurance wants to hike the ratio of non-life insurance related deals to 60 percent of all new customer contracts this year, up from an average of 40 percent so far.<\/p>\n
Kyobo Life Insurance is currently promoting a campaign focused on long-term insurance plans tailored for medical treatments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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