I Thought “Life Insurance in Bitcoin” Was Just a Thought Experiment. Then I Realized It Already Exists. So, What About Europe? Let me tell you how this idea entered my head. I was thinking about life insurance in the usual way. Boring, necessary, adult. Then another thought showed up: If I can hold wealth in Bitcoin, why is life insurance still entirely stuck in fiat?
Fiat here meaning government issued currency such as euros, dollars or Swiss Franc. You are probably objecting already. I did too.
You: Life insurance in Bitcoin? That cannot work. Volatility alone kills it.
Me: That was my first reaction as well. Volatility. Hedging. Immediate headache.
Then I paused.
Wait a minute. Why am I assuming the policy itself must be in dollars or Swiss Francs?
The mistake almost everyone makes
The usual mental model looks like this:
· Premiums in fiat
· Benefits in fiat
Bitcoin somewhere in the background as an investment exposure
And then everyone panics because they are trying to protect a fiat promise with a non fiat asset.
But that panic comes from one unchallenged assumption.
That the unit of account must be fiat.
What if it does not have to be?
What happens when everything is in Bitcoin?
So, I tried a different framing.
· Premiums paid in BTC (Bitcoin, the digital asset and payment network).
· Benefits paid in BTC.
· Reserves held in BTC.
· Balance sheet measured in BTC.
Not Bitcoin as an investment sleeve. Bitcoin as the currency of the contract itself.
If everything is denominated in Bitcoin, then internally one Bitcoin is always one Bitcoin.
Volatility still exists relative to fiat currencies, yes. Inside the system, the numbers add up.
Then came the realization
This is not theoretical.
There is already a licensed and regulated insurer doing exactly this.
The company is Meanwhile, a life insurance carrier regulated in Bermuda by the BMA (Bermuda Monetary Authority, the financial and insurance regulator of Bermuda).
That is the moment where the idea stops being a clever mental exercise and becomes a real category.
What this company actually does
The description is almost aggressively simple.
Take a basic limited pay whole life insurance policy. Replace the word dollars with Bitcoin.
That is the product.
This is not a DeFi product (decentralized finance, meaning blockchain based financial services that operate without regulated intermediaries such as banks or insurers).
It is a traditional insurance contract issued by a licensed carrier, subject to solvency rules, capital requirements, audits, and regulatory supervision.
The mechanics are old. The unit of account is new.
Why this matters
Bitcoin holders today face two structural frictions.
Most financial products remain denominated in fiat. Selling Bitcoin to access them often triggers capital gains taxes and ends exposure.
A Bitcoin native policy changes that.
· You do not sell Bitcoin to obtain cover.
· Policy values grow in Bitcoin terms.
· Death benefits are paid in Bitcoin.
· Loans can be taken against the policy without liquidation.
This is designed for long term holders, not for short term liquidity needs.
Solvency, reserves, and why this is not a toy
Life insurance is not about innovation. It is about trust.
That trust is built through solvency, meaning the insurer’s ability to meet all future obligations to policyholders.
Meanwhile operates under a full insurance license and is subject to strict capital reserve requirements. Capital reserves are regulatory buffers held by the insurer to absorb losses before policyholder assets are affected.
Losses are absorbed first by shareholder capital. If solvency ratios fall below regulatory thresholds, the regulator can intervene early.
The company also publishes externally audited financial statements denominated entirely in Bitcoin.
That matters.
It shows that assets, liabilities, reserves, and solvency ratios can be expressed coherently in Bitcoin without translating everything back into fiat.
This is how insurance earns credibility. Not through narratives, but through capital discipline.
The real operational friction
If premiums and benefits are in Bitcoin, volatility is not the daily operational risk.
The friction is mundane.
· Administration
· Compliance
· Audit
· Payroll
· Vendors
· Distribution
The real world still invoices in fiat.
The solution is operational, not ideological.
A conservative expense layer funded via stablecoins. Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to maintain a stable value, usually pegged to fiat currencies such as the US dollar, the euro or our beloved Swiss Franc.
Bitcoin remains the reserve and the asset. Stablecoins handle day to day operating costs.
Stablecoins are plumbing. Bitcoin is the structure.
So the real question shifts to Europe
Once you accept that this works in practice, the interesting question is no longer technical.
It becomes geographic.
Is there demand for this in Europe? And should we build one in Switzerland?
Europe has a large population of Bitcoin holders, entrepreneurs, and high net worth individuals who already think in terms of long-term wealth preservation and estate planning.
Estate planning meaning the legal and financial arrangements used to transfer wealth upon death.
Switzerland in particular has three advantages:
· A mature insurance regulatory framework
· Deep experience with private wealth and cross border structures
· Increasing regulatory clarity around digital assets
What Europe does not yet have is a Bitcoin native life insurance carrier built under Swiss or European prudential rules.
The gap is visible.
Where this leaves us
I started with a naive question.
How would life insurance even work in Bitcoin?
I ended up somewhere more precise.
If you want death cover with benefits paid in Bitcoin, you do not solve it with hedging. You solve it with denomination.
· Assets in Bitcoin.
· Liabilities in Bitcoin.
· Premiums in Bitcoin.
· Claims in Bitcoin.
· Expenses handled conservatively alongside the system.
And now the most interesting question is not whether this is possible.
It clearly is.
The question is whether Europe is ready for it.
And whether Switzerland should be the place where the next one is built.
Read also: Behind the scenes of the insurance world: A conversation with Eric Lefebvre
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