With rapidly ageing populations in many of the world’s more developed economies, there is a growing market for products that respond when senior citizens experience severe and permanent health impairments and require long-term specialist care. The costs for such specialised care are likely to exceed individual retirement incomes and benefits from social security covers where they exist. This creates an apparent need for insurance products filling this financial gap and enabling consumers to make use of high-quality care facilities.

Hannover Re recog­nised this emer­ging trend many years ago and set about posi­tioning itself as a lea­ding player in the senior citi­zens insu­rance product space. The increa­singly wide recog­nition among the general popula­tion of the need to provide for one’s own later life care needs has resul­ted in a market that is not only growing but also diversi­fying.

Companies like Hannover Re seek to support their clients in offe­ring inno­vative products that respond more intelli­gently and imagina­tively to long-term care needs.

Our clients benefit from our global aware­ness of how diffe­rent markets and terri­tories have responded to the challenge of long-term care, provi­ding a valuable source of insight and fresh ideas.

Hannover Re has led the way in this area. We support solutions that range from long-term provision starting during peoples’ working lives to products that convert savings into insurance benefits. We were, for example, the first reinsurer to promote the idea of en­hanced annuity pro­ducts that deliver increa­sed annuity pay­ments to those expe­riencing severe ill health. We have also deve­loped an ‘imme­diate needs’ policy sold to those about to enter a long term care faci­lity: while facing a signifi­cantly reduced life expec­tancy they need to be sure they can fund care for the re­mainder of their lives.