It's easy to be gloomy and assume the world will end, including in the insurance industry, but, of course, most of the time we assume that the world is about to end, it doesn't.
Warren Buffett is a very rich man who controls the Gen Re disability insurance reinsurance and consulting business partly because he responds to other people's assumption that the world is about to end by getting out his checkbook.
One reason to think that the world will end in the disability insurance market is that the baby boomers are getting older, and ricketier.
They had good medical care and pretty good food in their childhood, but they've watched an awful lot of TV and eaten an awful lot of Frankenfood since then. They are a pretty hefty group of people.
But, on the other hand: U.S. government statistics on the health of the boomers have been pretty good. The boomers might need bigger clothes than their elders did in the same stage of life, but, all other factors being held equal, they've been fairly able-bodied.
