Love insurance policies in China seem to be betting on the lack of it

Since insurance companies are not known to be suckers for romance, all those besotted Chinese who have been contemplating buying ‘love insurance’ — or have done so — should wonder why such an option is being offered at all.

One company stipulates that if a couple ties the knot between three and 13 years after buying a 99 yuan, 297 yuan or 495 yuan policy (with discounts for students and serving soldiers), there will be a payout of 1,999 yuan, 5,997 yuan, and 9,995 yuan, respectively.

A fourth one for 399 yuan offers a 0.5 carat heartshaped diamond with that same time-frame caveat. Another company’s payout is 10,000 roses on a couple’s wedding day but, once again, if they marry three years after buying the policy.

The reason for that curious time embargo, it seems, is because insurance actuaries estimate that 98.39% of Chinese couples either break up or get hitched before three years.

Rather than being genuine initiatives to entice commitment-shy Chinese to try matrimony, insurance companies are obviously betting on exactly the opposite, buoyed by data of rising divorce figures and declining marriage rates there for several years. That insurance companies in other countries have not jumped on the love bandwagon paradoxically indicates, therefore, a less cynical outlook for romance and marriage elsewhere!