Hong Kong, [10 August 2026] – At a recent gathering of actuaries to discuss Building Property Insurance, the Actuarial Society of Hong Kong (ASHK) has identified critical areas for improvement in building protection and insurance awareness to address a potential crisis: the massive gap in building property insurance knowledge that may leave many families vulnerable.

Addressing the Insurance Knowledge Gap

Many residents assume they are fully covered, only to find out too late that they aren't. ASHK have identified a critical misunderstanding among the public:

• Home Insurance - covering internal fixtures, furniture, and personal belongings, and
• Building Property Insurance - covering the actual physical structure and common areas of the estate.

“As a professional body, our role is to bring clarity to complex risk issues, so that individuals and communities can make informed decisions before adverse events occur,” says Trinity Pong, Co-Chairperson of the ASHK General Insurance Committee, “improving public understanding of insurance is essential to strengthening community resilience.”

A Homeowner’s Checklist: 5 Ways to Protect Your Future

To help homeowners avoid financial ruin following a disaster, the ASHK recommends these essential steps:

• Be Safety-smart: Risk management must extend beyond insurance to include immediate attention to safety complaints, building material concerns and good building maintenance, which often serve as early warning signs. Act early, stop disasters before they start.
• Check Public Liability Coverage: Beyond the building structure, estates must maintain enough Public Liability Insurance and Group Personal Accident Insurance for management estate staff to cover legal liabilities arising from accidents or tragedies such as this.
• Vet Your Contractor: For estates undergoing renovation, ensure contractors hold Employees’ Compensation, Third-Party Liability, and Contractors’ All Risks Insurance. If they don’t, the financial burden could fall on the owners.
• Make Sure Your Cover is Enough: Owners’ Corporations must evaluate whether the coverage limit is sufficient or if more comprehensive protection is warranted.
• Review Your Coverage Regularly: Given that reconstruction costs for large estates can run into billions of dollars, and that construction costs are skyrocketing due to inflation, insured sums should be professionally reviewed every two to three years to ensure coverage remains adequate.

Why Actuaries Care

Actuaries are like "math detectives"—we study data to predict and manage risk. "As actuaries, we have the technical expertise and professional responsibility to help our community manage these risks," said Jenny Lai, Co-Chairperson of the ASHK General Insurance Committee. By bridging the gap between complex policy and public awareness, the ASHK hopes to ensure that if tragedy strikes again, Hong Kong families aren't left standing in the rubble without a path forward.

Hong Kong, [2 July 2026] – In this first episode of our awareness series, we look at the "hidden heartbeat" of cancer statistics in our city—the numbers that define our collective risk.

The 14-minute reality

Whilst we sleep tonight, 35 more people in Hong Kong will wake up tomorrow morning diagnosed with cancer; you could be one of them. To understand the scale of cancer in Hong Kong, we look at how often a new diagnosis occurs. Based on the most recent data, more than 37,900[1]  new cases were recorded in a single year. This means that every 14 minutes, a person in Hong Kong is diagnosed with cancer; that’s more than 100 Hong Kongers every single day of the year. It is a reminder that cancer is not a distant possibility, but a constant reality in our healthcare landscape.

1 in 4 vs. 1 in 5 – Will you be the unlucky one?

Cancer can strike at any age. When we look at the probability of being diagnosed before the age of 75, the statistics offer a clear wake-up call for financial and health planning:

- For Males: 1 in 4 will develop cancer before age 75.¹

- For Females: 1 in 5 will develop cancer before age 75.¹

These odds suggest that cancer is a foreseeable life event for a significant portion of our population. Actuaries assess risks to help design affordable protection plans so that a diagnosis doesn't lead to a major financial burden for a family.

What are the trends?

As our population ages, cancer diagnoses continue to increase gradually. One of the most striking trends we’ve identified is that cancer is affecting men and women differently over time. When we adjust for the effects of an ageing population, a clear split emerges:

- For Men: The overall incidence rate has been relatively stable.¹

- For Women: The trend is deteriorating, with an increasing rate of new cases observed over the last decade.¹

Incident rates are still high for both groups, but women have recently surpassed men in the total number of new cancer cases diagnosed annually in Hong Kong.¹

Is it this simple for all cancers?
While the average (adjusted for the ageing population) shows these trends, the reality beneath the surface is more complex. While some types of cancer are in retreat, others are rising sharply—often linked to modern lifestyles in a high-density city.

Survival: The power of early detection
The final, and highly important, number we track is survival. Data consistently shows that cancer is not a single outcome, but a race against time.

Survival rates by stage tell a powerful story: for many common cancers, the 5-year survival rate for patients diagnosed at Stage I is 90% or higher². At this early stage, survival is often relatively close to that of the general population. However, that survival rate drops drastically—sometimes to below 10%—if the cancer is not caught until Stage IV².

From an actuarial perspective, this "survival gap" is why we strongly advocate for early detection. It doesn’t just save lives; it reduces the complexity and cost of treatment, keeping the entire healthcare system more affordable for everyone.

¹ Overview of Cancer Statistics in Hong Kong, accessed on May 9, 2026, https://www.cancer.gov.hk/en/hong_kong_cancer/overview_of_cancer_statistics_in_hong_kong.html

² Overview of Hong Kong Cancer Statistics of 2023 About the Hong ..., accessed on May 9, 2026, https://www3.ha.org.hk/cancereg/pdf/overview/Overview%20of%20HK%20Cancer%20Stat%202023.pdf  

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