Asia Life & Health consumer survey 2025

Asia’s consumers are navigating an era of growing economic uncertainty. Job insecurity, increased costs of living, chronic health burdens and longer life spans are reshaping how people think about financial protection.

To better understand how people perceive risk and protection, this year Swiss Re Institute conducted a survey of more than 12 000 consumers across 12 Asian markets (including both advanced and emerging economies). The findings offer a detailed look into shifting attitudes, unmet needs and what consumers want from life and health (L&H) insurance. For insurers the message is clear: aligning with consumers’ evolving preferences through product innovation is not only a competitive imperative, but also a path toward closing Asia’s persistent protection gaps.

Survey respondents showed strong interest in L&H products, particularly in emerging Asia where 60% said they intend to buy life insurance in the next year. Yet barriers like perceived high price, lack of consumer knowledge and awareness, and product irrelevance were frequently cited reasons to not buy cover. Broader concerns over job security and cost of living present further barriers. Unemployment is the biggest worry for about 60% of respondents in emerging Asia. In the region’s advanced economies, 45% cited cost of living as their main concern.

Purchasing barriers have real consequences. We estimate the health protection gap (HPG) across the 12 surveyed Asian markets reached USD 258 billion in premium equivalent terms in 2024. This is based on the share of healthcare costs that households find financially stressful, derived from our survey and World Health Organisation data. Compared to 2017 when we conducted our last consumer survey on stressful out-of-pocket (OOP) healthcare expenditure, the gap increased by 21%. Most of the gap stems from emerging Asia. In absolute terms, China accounts for over half the region’s HPG. This is due to its large population as well as growing household healthcare spending on more modern treatments. However, our HPG estimates do not include the non-treatment gap due to affordability and availability issues and likely understate the level of vulnerability in all countries such as India, where many households cannot afford healthcare or it is not even available.

Our survey confirms that OOP healthcare spending remains a key driver of financial stress across Asia. In most markets, respondents reported feeling more burdened by medical expenses in 2024 than in 2017, a trend more pronounced in emerging economies like India. Government schemes to increase public healthcare coverage have expanded in several countries, including large-scale public insurance initiatives in Indonesia, India and Thailand. Nevertheless, gaps remain in coverage adequacy and accessibility. For many households, chronic conditions and critical illnesses are the leading sources of stress-related spending, highlighting areas where better insurance protection is urgently needed.

In parallel, we estimate that the mortality protection gap (MPG) for the same Asian markets was USD 132 billion in premium equivalent terms in 2024, a 35% increase from 2017. This reflects the rising income replacement needs of an expanding middle class and relatively low uptake of life insurance, especially in emerging markets. Household incomes and therefore protection needs have surged, but insurance uptake has not kept pace. These unmet insurance needs call for more targeted, inclusive insurance solutions.

Making insurance more affordable, accessible and sustainable is essential to close Asia’s protection gaps. Bundling L&H insurance simplifies administrative process and consumers appear to welcome protection combinations. For example, more than 90% surveyed said they do not want to buy a pure life policy. Still, bundling makes policies more complex and consumers need clear explanation of terms and conditions at the point of sale. Preventative care value added services are also popular and can avoid or contain the high costs of future complications. Finally, severity-based designs can match payouts with consumers’ actual medical and financial needs over their lifetimes more accurately than traditional critical illness insurance. To complement such product innovations, insurers must also improve how the details of coverage are communicated, ensuring consumers are aware of and understand the real value of financial protection.