(Bloomberg) -- Low interest rate policies by central banksaround the world are threatening insurance companies and pensionfunds, said Laurence D. Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRockInc., the world’s largest asset manager.

“As we live in a world of persistent low rates and, in the caseof Europe, negative rates today, when you put a macro-prudentialframework on it, we are destroying the value of pension funds,”Fink said at a conference in Singapore on Tuesday. “We aredestroying the viability of insurance companies.”

BlackRock is the biggest investor in insurers including AmericanInternational Group Inc. and Prudential Financial Inc. His NewYork-based company also seeks to manage funds for insurers as theyweigh bets in infrastructure and real estate to counter low bondyields.

Fink said that policy makers need to think broadly about theimpact of their decisions. He joins insurance executives includingMetLife Inc. CEO Steve Kandarian and Axa SA’s Henri De Castries inlamenting that low interest rates are punishing savers. Insurershold trillions of dollars in fixed-income assets to backobligations to policyholders.

“Society has given our central bankers worldwide theresponsibility for macro-prudential risk, all the risk in thesystem, not just the risk in the banking system,” Fink said at theCredit Suisse Global Megatrends conference. “I don’t think there isenough talk about what are the costs of the low rate environment tothe other components of our global society -- pension funds,retirees, savers, and insurance companies.”

De Castries in 2013 called central bank policies a form of“financial repression” that forced savers to rescue the bankingsystem.

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