Women's Day finds marriage insurance wooing Chinese

Qian Yaxian received a special gift from her husband prior to Women's Day -- a receipt of "marriage insurance."

The insurance, with the beautiful name "Red Rose", guarantees what the full-time housewife in Guangzhou will gain in the next 50 years: an annual dividend that can be paid for both pension and medical care, and which rises if her marriage endures longer.

The policy allows the holder to choose the date she wishes to collect annuity. Most importantly, all the money will go to the woman, no matter whether the couple are tied or divorced.

Qian, 35, says she feels "secured" since the insurance would "belong to me and protect me for all my life."

Women's Day, which falls on Thursday, is an apt time to consider the rise of such insurance policies as well as changing Chinese attitudes toward marriage and women's independence. With divorce becoming more acceptable, and the role of women in society augmenting, a significant change in China's Marriage Law and the launch of Red Rose were both notable at the tail-end of last year.

Enterprising insurance firms in China have found novel ways to unite the romantic and practical sides of wedlock with a policy that generates maximum payoff only if a couple stay together.

Various kinds of insurance policies in the name of "protecting marriage and love" have sprung up while rising divorce rates have been reported across the country in recent years.

Red Rose had garnered 1.75 million yuan (276,500 U.S. dollars) three weeks after it was unveiled in October, according to Zheng Miaoxiang, a sales director in Guangdong province for DaTong, the largest online insurance provider in China.

"Usually, husbands and parents buy the insurance as gifts for their wives and daughters, but there are also women who buy for themselves," Zheng explains.

EXTRA RELIEF AMID LOOSENED WEDLOCK

The biggest factor inspiring sales of marriage insurance policies such as Red Rose, some experts believe, is a rising divorce rate.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of divorces in 2011 hit 2.1 million, suggesting 5,800 couples split every day on average.

The figure was 6.4 times more than that of 1978, when China started its reform and opening-up drive.

The rise if partly attributable to new marriage registration regulations put into effect in October 2003 to simplify divorce procedures.

Up until this point, couples who wanted a divorce needed a reference from their employers or residential community administrators. But that ceased to be the case in late 2003.