Life insurance in Asia

Extracted from Economist magazine:
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15772822&subjectID=348960&fsrc=nwl

Stephan Binder of McKinsey, a consultancy, thinks that people should be insured for 10-12 times their annual income. By this measure, Asians (and, for that matter, everybody else) are woefully underinsured. What’s more, social-security entitlements in the region are paltry compared with other rich countries. So annuity schemes are a natural supplement for retirement income. Japan, the greyest of the Asian countries, is already seeing the effects of demographic change. The dankai generation—which refers to the 8m people born between 1947 and 1949—spent 14.5 trillion yen ($125 billion) on insurance with individual annuities in 2006. And that was before most of them had retired.
Another avenue for growth is in health-care plans, which are undersupplied. In the Japanese market, over half of new policies cover medical costs such as cancer. Other Asian countries are sure to follow as the savvy pre-retirement generation—who no longer believe that their families will care for them, and do not think government schemes will suffice—start to think about their future. Joseph Ngai of McKinsey reckons that rich Asia could see 11-12% growth in insurance premiums