South Korea

Axco provides details on the life insurance sector including South Korean market participants, reinsurance and distribution channels. The reports describe classes of business from both individual and group life such as whole life, endowment, term life and unit-linked.
Information on non-life classes for example critical illness and private medical insurance.

The report describes the public and private healthcare system in South Korea, the scope of cover, accessibility financing and provides an analysis of how the public and private systems complement each other.

Axco reports on the three pillars of South Korean pension provision.

• State pension benefits including benefit calculations and eligibility criteria 
• Workplace pension provision; types of schemes calculations eligibility and; tax implications
• Voluntary individual pension provision, type of products and tax implications

The South Korea report provides an in-depth analysis of the regulatory framework governing social security as well as details on financing and eligibility. Information includes but is not limited to

• state pensions,
• permanent disability benefit
• occupational accident and disease
• maternity and paternity payments 

Life insurance in Korea dates back to the end of the 19th century, although the modern industry essentially dates back to the mid-20th century. Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the industry has struggled with low interest rates that do not match the high interest rate guarantees contained in the policies issued in earlier years.

Korea's insurance buying public is relatively risk averse with guaranteed products, written in the general account ....

The retirement benefit market in Korea still has much development to be done in order to become a true pensions market. Historically, termination indemnities (payable as lump sums) due in terms of the Labor Standards Act (LSA) were paid from operating income and held as liabilities on the balance sheets of the employer but this is no longer tax effective. ....

The state healthcare system is extensive and costs are managed by the legislature mandating healthcare costs. Individuals pay a proportion of medical costs that is dependent on the type of medical service provided. In most cases the service user pays a copayment of 30% of the costs of medication and doctors' fees, but for dental work this increases to 80% and for inpatient care the copayment is 20% (although this may be lower for certain diseases). There are also caps on the total copayments payable by an individual each year. Market sources note that the current government wants to reduce the copayment levels ....