Denmark

Axco provides details on the life insurance sector including Danish 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 Denmark, 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 Danish 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 Denmark 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 

Although there are no official statistics available, the market for individual life insurance in Denmark, that is investment and risk products not written under pension tax rules, is very small. Income taxes in Denmark are very high so almost all individuals take full advantage of the pension tax regime to arrange long-term savings contracts, rather than saving from taxed income. The Danish life insurance industry is therefore almost totally orientated towards pension products and this is unlikely to change anytime in the future.

At the time this report was in preparation the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Danish life/pension market remained to be seen. It can be expected, however, that any downturn in the economy and increase in unemployment will negatively affect premium income to life/pension insurers. At the same time, any sustained fall in investment markets will negatively affect the ability of some life/pension insurers to meet their guaranteed interest commitments and will affect insureds' appetite for unit-linked savings products.

State healthcare provision in Denmark is of high quality but, despite treatment guarantees, waiting lists can be long, so in recent years there has been considerable growth in private healthcare insurance (private medical insurance - PMI). In 2018 over 2.016 million lives were covered by PMI, overwhelmingly through occupational health schemes, and equivalent to over half of the total workforce. PMI has become a standard element in any employee benefit scheme and is championed by trade unions who wish to see their members covered by a full range of benefits.