Mexico in numbers: insurance, pensions and demographics

The idea for this dashboard comes from the research teams of actuarial associations that publish their figures with the method and source in plain view, such as SOA Research in North America or the Actuaries Institute in Australia. There are no in-house projections here: only official data from the CNSF (National Insurance and Surety Commission), CONSAR (National Retirement Savings Commission), the IMSS (Mexican Social Security Institute), CONAPO (National Population Council) and the OECD, read in their original documents and dated. When a figure is a calculation by actuaria.mx from official data, this is stated explicitly.

In 2025 direct premium written by the insurance and surety sector totaled 1,047.6 billion pesos, the first time it has exceeded one trillion, with real growth of 8.0% over 2024: 8.0% in insurance and 5.2% in surety. Life remains the largest line of business, with 40% of the portfolio and real growth of 7.5% driven by Individual Life (9.7%). Property and casualty (Daños) grew 8.1%, with P&C excluding Auto at 10.9% and Auto at 6.0%; Accident and Health, 7.4%, with Medical Expenses at 7.9%; and the pension insurance arising from the social security laws, 14.5%.

The first half of 2026 changed the tone. At the end of the second quarter cumulative direct premium was 569.8 billion with real growth of just 1.3%: Life rose 3.0% and Accident and Health 5.3%, but P&C fell 3.0% on a 9.9% drop in P&C excluding Auto. The CNSF itself describes growth as stalling since the second quarter of 2025.

Sector claims reached 531.3 billion pesos in 2025, up 8.3% in real terms, slightly above the growth in earned premium. The biggest push came from Accident and Health (14.4%, with Medical Expenses at 14.7%) and from P&C (11.2%), where Fire and Catastrophic Risks grew 39.1% and 36.9%. Net income for the year fell 12.7% to 72.0 billion, owing to higher claims and a 6.6% drop in investment income. Solvency remains comfortable: in the fourth quarter of 2025 the solvency capital requirement (RCS) coverage ratio was 3.8 times (preliminary figure), the investment base coverage ratio 1.07 and the liquidity ratio 2.0, against a regulatory minimum of 1 in all three cases.

Penetration measures premiums as a percentage of GDP, and density measures premiums per capita. According to the CNSF, insurance and surety penetration rose from 2.2% in 2018 to 2.5% in 2019 and reached 3.0% of GDP in 2025, after growing 11.1% during the year. Dividing 2025 direct premium by CONAPO's mid-year population estimate gives a density of about 7,855 pesos per capita; that ratio is a calculation by actuaria.mx using official figures.

Comparing with other countries requires a single source with a single methodology. The OECD insurance indicators database records penetration for Mexico of 2.76% of GDP in 2024 (gross premiums), against a median of 4.41% among OECD members with data and 9.44% for the OECD aggregate, in which large markets such as the United States (12.7%) carry more weight than in the median. The gap in density is wider: 387 dollars per capita in Mexico against a median of 2,010 dollars. OECD and CNSF figures are not directly comparable with each other because they differ in the definition of premium and the GDP used.

The retirement savings system (SAR) closed 2025 with 8.3 trillion pesos under management, equivalent to 23.8% of GDP, and gains of 1.14 trillion during the year; the 2025 return was 16.8%, according to CONSAR. By June 2026 the balance had reached 9.0 trillion. Over 29 years of operation the Afores (retirement fund administrators) have delivered a historical nominal annual return of 10.7%, and 58.5% of assets under management come from returns net of fees. The average fee for 2026 is 0.538% of assets, the lowest since the system was created.

The chart uses CONSAR open data: the sum of assets managed by each Afore at the end of December, in trillions of current pesos. In almost three decades the series shows only one annual decline, in 2022, and a sharp jump in 2008.

As of September 30, 2026 there were 22,927,276 jobs registered with the IMSS, the highest figure in the series, with 87.1% permanent positions and an average contribution base salary of 666.0 pesos per day. Over twelve months 355,594 jobs were added, annual growth of 1.6%. In addition, 8,184,401 people were enrolled in the IMSS voluntary health insurance scheme (seguro facultativo).

On the benefits side, the IMSS Memoria Estadística 2025 records 5,236,066 pensions in payment at year-end 2025 under the occupational risks insurance and the disability, old age, early old age and death insurance (IVCM): 3.48 million old age and early old age (cesantía), 268 thousand disability, 1.20 million survivor pensions (widowhood, orphanhood and dependent parents) and 293 thousand occupational risks. The number has nearly tripled since 2000 (1.79 million). For the ISSSTE it was not possible to verify a recent dated count of pensioners, because its portal did not respond while this page was being prepared; it is therefore not included.

CONAPO projections estimate 133.4 million inhabitants at mid-2025 and 134.4 million in 2026. The population will keep growing to a peak of 147.0 million in 2052 and then begin to decline. What changes most is the structure: the share of people aged 65 and over goes from 8.8% in 2025 to 18.2% in 2050, the median age from 30 to 40, and the total fertility rate from 1.86 to 1.57 children per woman. Life expectancy at birth rises from 75.7 to 80.1 years.

The total dependency ratio barely moves (48.3 people of dependent age per 100 aged 15 to 64 in 2025 and 52.7 in 2050), but its composition reverses: child dependency falls from 35.3 to 24.9 and old-age dependency rises from 13.0 to 27.8. For pension systems, that second figure is the one that matters.