I don't know what you define as insurance, but in this case it's basically something which contains things you can invest or save money to, and you get to name

I don't know what you define as insurance, but in this case it's basically something which contains things you can invest or save money to, and you get to name a beneficiary (e.g. your child/grandchild/wife/husband/etc.) who gets the money in case of your death. Plus some other details. Otherwise it like a "normal" brokerage account, except the tax rules are a bit different, no capital tax on profit but you pay a certain percentage based on the size of the insurance (which has details like in which quartal you moved money in). Dividends are not capital taxed, there's a "template tax". Losses cannot be deducted. Etc. Anyway, with the lending of your stocks the chance of everything going bad is very, very low, but of course it's still non-zero. I guess some people opt out not because of the inherent risk but because they don't like short selling as a concept.