Longevity Risk Protection Is a Global Mess: Idea File

Seth Rachlin is helping Capgemini and Efma promote a report that contains an important idea: The people of the world are much less likely to think they are well-protected against longevity risk than against health cost risk, or against climate-change risk.

Capgemini is a consulting firm, and Efma is a Paris-based group for banks and insurers.

Capgemini surveyed about 8,000 personal lines and commercial lines insurance customers in 20 countries. It asked consumers to rate their exposure to six types of emerging risk, and whether they had comprehensive protection against that risk.

(Related: Predicting the Future of Insurance)

Capgemini and Efma teams than analyzed the results for their World Insurance Report 2019.

The Survey Results

The percentages of individual coverage customers who classified themselves as having moderate to high levels of exposure to the six risks ranged from 69%, for risks related to climate change, up to 88%, for risks related to increase health care costs.

The “risk of outliving savings/financial insecurity old age” ranked third, and near the top, with 84% of the participants saying they had at least a moderate level of exposure to that risk.

The percentage of participants who said they had comprehensive protection against the six risks ranged from 3.3%, for cyberattacks, up to 13%, for risks related to climate change.

The percentage who said they had good protection against longevity risk was just 5%, or second from the bottom. The percentage who said they had good protection against increasing health care costs, and the percentage who said they had good protection against new medical concerns, was about 11%.

In other words: The survey participants themselves less than half as likely to think they had good protection against longevity risk than against health risk, or against climate-change risk.

What Seth Rachlin Said

Rachlin is an executive vice president and chief innovation of insurance at Capgemini.