"Special Contract-Focused Women's Insurance Should Increase Centered on Main Coverage"

Insurance Research Institute Report

There has been a call for female-specific insurance products, which mostly come in the form of riders, to be developed with a focus on main coverage.

According to a report by the Korea Insurance Research Institute on the 16th, current female-specific health insurance products have limitations as coverage is provided mainly through riders and services. As a result, additional premiums may be required to receive the desired female-specific coverage.

With the increase in women's participation in economic activities and expanded purchasing power, the demand for insurance subscriptions among women continues to grow. While the male economic participation rate has remained in the 70% range over the past 20 years, the female economic participation rate increased by 6.2 percentage points from 49.4% in 2001 to 55.6% in 2023. The rise in insurance demand is not only due to improved economic power of women but also because of increased exposure to various risks such as diseases and injuries, necessitating risk management.

This trend is particularly noticeable among young women in their 20s and 30s. An analysis of insurance subscription status among young users who accessed the insurance management and comparison platform company Habit Factory’s application ‘Signal Planner’ showed that out of a total of approximately 23.15 million insurance subscriptions, over 14.22 million were products for which women were paying premiums, accounting for more than 60% of the total subscriptions. Senior Research Fellow Kim Seok-young and researchers Hong Po-bae and Kim Sung-kyun explained in the report, "Given the steady increase in sales of recently launched female-specific insurance products, the female-specific insurance market is expected to have a bright growth outlook."

However, current female-specific health insurance products are sold mainly through female-specific riders such as breast cancer (receptor type) diagnosis benefit riders and postpartum depression treatment benefit riders, as well as female-specific services that encourage childbirth, such as fertility preservation services and ovarian age measurement tests. This is because the age at which cancers frequently occurring in women due to dietary and environmental factors is advancing, and the average age of first marriage and childbirth among women is continuously rising, increasing the risk of young women being exposed to infertility, subfertility, and birth defects related to advanced maternal age, which these products focus on covering.

The report suggested that since the female-specific insurance market is currently in its early growth stage, continuous research and development of insurance products that can respond to rapidly changing female coverage needs must be supported to secure sustained growth momentum. In particular, products centered on main coverage should increase. The report stated, "If female-specific insurance products focused on main coverage are developed, the efficiency of products in terms of coverage and price will improve, allowing the female-specific insurance market to grow to the next level," adding, "Furthermore, if coverage demands are segmented by women’s age groups and specialized products are created accordingly, demand is expected to increase even more."