Bermuda plays a key role in closing the global insurance protection gap by boosting the overall capacity in the life insurance market, the chief risk officer at Aegon Ltd has said.

Swiss Re estimated the gap to be about $1.8 trillion in 2022.

Speaking at the Biltir Bermuda International Life & Annuity Conference, Astrid Jäkel said Bermuda holds more than $1 trillion in assets, while the global life insurance market has more than $50 trillion, more than 8 per cent of the financial market.

“With these assets Bermuda plays an important role,” she said. “We provide long-term funding and we stabilise financial markets. Given our long-term investment, we invest in and provide funding for everything from large-scale public projects such as infrastructure, all the way to funding smaller creditors, entrepreneurs and private markets.”

She said as investors, people in the industry had the opportunity to foster sustainable growth as well as social development.

She expressed concern that in the United States 60 per cent of people earning less than $50,000 a year did not think they had saved enough for retirement.

“In closing the protection gap, it is important for us, as an industry, to offer innovative, flexible products that address the needs of these customer segments, and also provide sufficient return,” she said.

She said it is important to enhance the accessibility of these products through distribution channels that reach into these communities.

“It is also important to support customers in financial education, ultimately enhancing financial interest,” she said.

Ms Jäkel was appointed as Aegon’s Group chief risk officer in March 2022 and leads the global risk team, including financial and underwriting risk management, non-financial risk management as well as overarching risk governance and enterprise risk management framework. She co-led Aegon’s redomiciliation to Bermuda last year.