Life Insurance business is the out-of-sight type of the sector that few notice... until it is too late. So here is an early warning from the IMF (not known for early warnings).
Core point is: we are in a world of Japan - persistently low, extremely low interest rates. Which means that insurance companies with long-dated contracts face the challenge of liabilities exceeding assets at some point in time. The longer the duration of low rates, the greater is the risk of a system-wide insolvency.
So insurance industry took some stress tests recently. And passed. except the stress tested was not enough to match the current reality:
Oops...
