How do the products and services our businesses offer benefit our customers, the economy and wider society?
Throughout human history, our desire to be secure has been a driving force of our behavior. In the early days of humanity, we lived in groups to become more secure against prehistoric threats like hungry saber toothed tigers and the occasional grumpy wooly mammoth.
Now (thankfully) we often have other priorities. For example, making yourself secure can mean building enough pension savings to live your best life in retirement, or having a life insurance policy to ensure your loved ones are protected. And, while we tend to focus on what these products mean for us individually, it is worth noting they can often have a wider positive impact.
Not just our nearest and dearest
A single life insurance policy can, for example, benefit more people than you might expect. Let’s begin with the policyholder and their dependents: when you buy life insurance, you receive peace of mind, knowing your policy will provide money for your family, should the worst happen.
But, did you know that taking out that policy could have a wider impact? For example, the OECD found evidence to suggest that, as more people buy life insurance, they become less dependent on social security, which allows governments to focus spending on the people most in need.
Less pressure on squeezed budgets
This can in turn provide a welcome boost for governments that already face pressure on their budgets in other areas: for example, the challenges they face in funding state pensions. This has become an issue because, due to increased longevity, governments must now support a growing number of retirees that live for longer.
“People are living longer than at any time in history,” said Catherine Collinson, president of nonprofit the Transamerica Institute. “The idea that people can work for 40 years to save enough and accrue sufficient benefits in a state pension to fund a long retirement no longer adds up. Mitigating this challenge requires a different approach.”
A way forward
To address this funding issue, many countries have begun to reform their pension systems. In the US and UK, for example, this includes encouraging their citizens to supplement their state pensions with additional savings through workplace pension plans and private pension savings products.
Here, insurers can help again. As leading providers of occupational and personal pension products and services, Aegon’s US and UK businesses, Transamerica and Aegon UK, for example, already play an important role in helping people to save more for retirement - and in doing so help to reduce pressure on government spending.
Underpinning the future
Taking out a life insurance policy can also help the wider economy. This is because insurers invest the premiums you pay as a policyholder in assets that help to underpin economic growth. And, this can have a huge impact, because insurers invest a lot: European firms alone have over 10 trillion euro invested in the economy, according to trade body, Insurance Europe.
For the many, not just the few
So, as you can see, by providing for your own future - and those of your loved ones - you can also help a remarkable number of other people along the way.