The Financial Services Commission held a taskforce meeting on October 22 to have a final review of the preparatory work prior to the launch of the products enabling life insurance policyholders to have access to death benefits early in their retirement.

From October 30, life insurance policyholders will be able to tap into death benefits as retirement income. On October 23, eligible policyholders will be contacted individually and receive notifications from the following five life insurance companies—Samsung, Hanwha, Kyobo, Shinhan Life, and KB Life. As of the end of September 2025, the total number of eligible life insurance contracts stood at 414,000 with about KRW23.1 trillion in benefits.

By January 2, 2026, the rest of life insurers will follow suit and individually contact eligible policyholders for notification a week prior to the scheduled launch. This will bring up the total number of eligible life insurance contracts to 759,000 with the amount of benefits expanding to KRW35.4 trillion.

Since the newly introduced products are intended for policyholders aged 55 years old and over, application will only be available face-to-face with tellers via customer service centers or branch offices.

To make service experience more convenient, insurance companies will provide simulations and comparisons demonstrating individual customer’s expected amount of benefits based on the customer’s chosen ratio and period for converting death benefits into lifetime access.

Since the amount of policyholder’s lifetime access is determined by the amount of paid-in policy premiums, more senior policyholders are expected to receive greater amounts in lifetime access. Thus, policyholders are advised to choose the starting point and the duration of conversion based on individual circumstances. During the lifetime access conversion period, policyholders may choose to suspend or opt out entirely from the program early, and can also choose to reenter the program thereafter.

The government plans to continue to seek ways to introduce similar services that will help the aging population prepare for retirement.

The service-type conversion products, which will provide a variety of senior care services through the conversion of death benefits into lifetime access, will be operated as a testbed to facilitate a transition of insurance products into more service-type operations. The government plans to closely monitor the preparatory work in this regard and provide regulatory support needed through the regulatory sandbox program.

In addition, to promote retirement pension plans, insurance companies are currently in the preparation stage to introduce tontine pension plans in early 2026.

* Please refer to the attached PDF for details.