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This report employs individual-level register data to study the coverage and amounts of voluntary term life insurances, the monetary losses following from the death of a breadwinner, and the life insurance gap arising as the difference of the two. The data include information on the life insurances of Finnish individuals and their individual and household level information between 2018 and 2020. We find that 8 % of the individuals have at least one type of term life insurance in the data. For them the average life insurance is 73 000 €. The take up of life insurances differ between groups, and it is more frequent among working-age, married and higher income individuals. The life insurance gap calculations account for a number of changes in living standards following from a death of a breadwinner, including those in household income, consumption, existing wealth, survivors' pensions and life insurances. For those individuals who have earned income and who live in families consisting of at least two persons the average life insurance gap is between 65 000 € and 70 000 €. This is the amount of additional life insurance that would retain the consumption possibilities the same as before the breadwinner's death. For those who have a voluntary life insurance the gap is on average close to zero. Therefore, the life insurance gap arises mainly among those people not having a life insurance at all.

Many elderly people in Finland could increase they standard of living and receive more freedom of choice regarding long-term care by releasing part of their housing equity. The possibility to purchase reasonably priced life annuities and long-term care insurance would increase the benefits of housing equity release. However, there is virtually no market for such insurance in Finland. This report illustrates the benefits of life annuities and long-term care insurance, provides example of actuarially fair insurance pricing, and describes the conditions for this market to emerge. It argues that the government should support the emergence of an insurance market by clarifying the public welfare promise related to old age care and by promising not to seize private pension and long-term care insurance payouts e.g. via higher user fees for publicly provided long-term care.

Elderly people could markedly increase they standard of living by releasing their housing equity. Purchase of a single-payment life annuity would increase the benefits of this release. The tax treatment of these annuities is, however, very strict in Finland, because both yield and capital are taxed without deductibility of premiums. This study describes the wealth structure of households, assesses the options of taxing single-payment life annuities and analyses how launching of these products would influence tax receipts. We recommend that a rate-of-return allowance should be applied, leaving risk-free interest rate and mortality bonus untaxed. We show that adoption of this tax rule is likely to increase tax revenue, since it would reduce tax-preferred housing.

We study the extent to which retired households in Finland could supplement their mandatory pension benefits by releasing their equity. We also consider the tax treatment of different financial products that turn wealth into an income stream. In addition, we use a life cycle consumption-savings model to study which kind of households' in Finland would benefit the most from life annuities.

Tarkastelemme yksityistä eläkesäästämistä Suomessa. Luotaamme tulevaisuutta arvioimalla miten lakisääteisen eläketurvan muuttuminen ja eliniän piteneminen vaikuttavat yksityisen eläkesäästämisen tarpeeseen. Tarkastelemme asiaa nuorten, hiljattain työelämään astuneiden ikäluokkien aikahorisontilla. Käsittelemme yksityistä eläkesäästämistä niin kotitalouksien, rahoituslaitosten kuin julkisen taloudenkin näkökulmasta