A Study of Determinants on Demand for Life Insurance in Selected Countries

Life insurance is important to the extent that it is introduced as a valid index in the international survey of evaluating countries’ development level. However, this industry has remained unknown in most of the developing countries and its role is really low in these countries’ economy. The aim of this study is to maintain the impact of macro-economic variables with life insurance demand in MENA and some selected countries.
Using panel data model estimation, the effect of macro-economic variables on purchase of life insurance during 2003-2011 was analyzed. Macro-economic and premium data were extracted from World Bank website and Sigma journal, respectively. STATA software was used for data analysis.
The highest the lowest demands for life insurance belong to Singapore and Al jazeera, respectively. Also, life insurance demand in the mentioned countries showed significantly positive relationship with per-capita gross national product, human development index, life expectancy and population while the relationship was negative with inflation and interest rates.
Countries can increase the demand for life insurance by providing insurance services – with no significant difference with bank services as well as the dynamics of relative interest rate insurance with respect to annual inflation rate. They can also increase the demand sensitivity to income using advertisement and diversification of sales methods.