80% of Hungarians trust their lives to luck – how are we doing with self-care at home?

The work of life insurance advisors, who help assess risks, is essential to the well-being of society, yet this profession is still surrounded by distrust and taboo. The world stars of the industry gathered in Balatonfüred on October 29-30 to reform the life insurance market and discuss, among other things, the issues of ethical sales, customer trust and artificial intelligence.

The Pénzkultúra Foundation, in cooperation with the Canada Sales Congress, organized the 7th Life Insurance Summit this year at the Balatonfüred Congress Center, where the best-known international figures in the industry – including Tony Gordon, Jim Ruta and Solomon Hicks, members of the MDRT (Million Dollar Round Table) – shared their experiences. The goal of the congress was to raise domestic life insurance sales to an international level.

Challenges in the Hungarian market – domestic experts on the future of life insurance

80% of people in Central and Eastern Europe trust their lives to luck. The crises of recent years – from the COVID pandemic to high inflation – have drawn attention to how vulnerable the financial security of Hungarian families is.

“The financial security of most Hungarian families depends entirely on the income earners. If anything happens to them, the family can easily get into trouble”

– said Attila Solymár, founder of the Pénzkultúra Alapítvány.

According to a representative survey conducted by the Gallup International research institute on behalf of the Vienna Insurance Group (VIG), 80% of the Central and Eastern European population – including Hungary – does not think about what will happen to them if they have an accident and trusts that the state will cover the costs if they become unable to work for some reason.

The international research also revealed that 58% of respondents require financial advice, which Gábor Havas, President and CEO of UNION Biztosító, finds encouraging. “Due to the nature of financial advice, it requires personal, human consultation. As in other areas of life, the client can obtain information in this regard in the digital space, but this does not make him an expert. That is why we believe in the long-term necessity of the insurance brokerage profession, the intensive further development of its own personal sales channels creates added value for society.” – the expert highlighted.

According to Levente Vámos, Head of Sales Division at Allianz Hungária, the aging of society also poses a serious challenge. “The active population is less and less able to support the elderly, so it is important for everyone to think ahead and save for old age, but our experience shows that we typically start saving late,” he said. According to data from the Central Statistical Office (KSH), the activity rate of the 65–69-year-old age group increased from 4.8 percent to 15 percent between 2009 and 2024, which clearly shows that more and more pensioners are forced to continue working.