There's Plenty More Room For Asia's HNW Life Insurance Growth – McKinsey

Tom Burroughes

1 September 2026

Annual high net worth individuals’ new business estimate that annual premiums in Asia will reach between $100 billion to $140 billion by 2030. However, only 15 to 20 per cent of HNW individuals in Asia integrate life insurance into wealth planning, and this market has plenty of headroom, said in a recent report.

The consultancy has issued a report, The untapped prize: Asia’s high-net-worth insurance market, which argues that brokers remain gatekeepers of the market, and that the sector could do more to penetrate the HNW market.

“Some insurers are pursuing this market with their existing retail playbook: more advisors and more life insurance policies wrapped around an investment portfolio. We believe that approach is ill-adapted to the HNWI segment,” the report said.

“At the same time, a parallel opportunity is emerging for insurers to partner with fast-growing mid-tier private banks, financial advisors, and external asset managers who are looking to strengthen their wealth offerings and are increasingly open to embedding insurance into holistic client solutions. To succeed, insurers can position themselves as the default risk-and-legacy partner for multi-jurisdiction families,” it said.

The firm predicts that by the end of the decade, the Asia–Pacific region is expected to reach about $120 trillion in personal financial assets, about 40 per cent of the global total and rising at a 6.4 per cent compound annual growth rate. Among HNW individuals, assets are rising at more than 8.0 per cent CAGR.

When broken down by segments, ultra-HNW individuals’ assets (those with $30 million or more in assets, will see them rise by 8.2 per cent; among HNW individuals ($10 to $30 million), the figure will also rise 8.2 per cent, and among “emerging” HNW individuals, 8.1 per cent. The growth rate of wealth of affluent people, defined as between $250,000 to $1 million, is 7.6 per cent and for the mass market, under $250,000, the rate is 5.1 per cent.

Rising wealth changes the way insurance is used in Asia, the report said.

“The focus is shifting from selling individual products to liquidity planning, legacy transfer, business succession, health optimisation, and the drawing down of assets to fund retirement,” the report said. “These are areas in which most insurers are actively building capabilities. This shift is already visible across the wealth ecosystem, where leading private banks are expanding beyond product distribution into integrated advisory through dedicated family office and wealth planning offerings.”

APAC’s insurance market is splitting into two parts, the report continued.

Retail-first insurers are “moving upmarket,” extending the proven affluent market client model into the HNW individual segment. These insurers’ approach is based on scale with broader distribution access (financial advisors, insurance agents, bancassurance, and brokers), targeting entry-level HNWIs and younger emerging wealthy segments, relatively smaller case sizes, a domestic market focus, and a higher degree of reinsurance cession to manage risk.

The second segment is made up of HNW specialists designed for complexity. These insurers (existing players and new units of incumbents) have built from the ground up to serve HNW and UHNW clients across jurisdictions. Their models typically combine multi-booking centres (for example, Bermuda, Hong Kong SAR, and Singapore). The distribution is more curated, often broker-led or employing banking partnerships.

Cross-border
The report detailed distribution of personal financial assets originating in the APAC region. For example, $2.7 trillion of assets originated from APAC, with $650 billion destined for Europe, $750 billion for North America and the Caribbean, and $25 billion for the Middle East and Africa.

Within Asia, personal financial assets originating in mainland China showed $700 billion going into Hong Kong and $500 billion for Singapore, which sits with recent reports of considerable transfers of wealth from the mainland to other financial centres.