7 - Health insurance products Flashcards
Main types of healthcare products
- Private medical insurance
- Critical illness
- Long-term care
- Other products and cash benefits
Aspects to consider in product design (Healthcare)
- Customer acceptability
- Regulatory requirements
- Price competitiveness
- System capabilities
Types of underwriting for short-term contracts
- Full medical underwriting
- Moratorium underwriting
- Medical history disregard
- No worse terms
- Continued personal medical exclusion
How can medical expenses cover be limited under PMI?
PMI products will vary according to:
1. Overall financial limits and/or sub-limits
- The level of the reimbursement rate for specific healthcare services
- Whether the limit covered services to a network of healthcare providers
- Whether to provide out-of-service hospital benefits
- Whether to include medical savings accounts
- Benefits required by legislation
- Risk transfer mechanisms
List 6 typical activities of daily living
WTF DMT
- Washing
- Dressing
- Feeding
- Toileting
- Mobility
- Transferring
Key features of short term contracts
- Cover is typically provided for a single year and can then be renewed
- There can be multiple claims
- Claims are generally unknown and can be volatile
- There can be delays in reporting and settling of claims
What customer needs does PMI meet?
If no state-funded care exists, then PMI will usually provide for all forms of healthcare needs on an indemnity basis.
If the State provides some level of healthcare to all, then PMI is usually bought when an individual requires care such as:
- medical attention without waiting
- medical attention in a higher standard of accommodation
- medical attention with a doctor of choice
- medical attention in a local or private hospital
Aspects of healthcare markets that distinguish it from other markets
- Public good characteristic and universal access
- Information asymmetry, over-supply and demand
- Information about the range and quality of healthcare services relative to cost is difficult, if not impossible, for consumers to obtain.
- Rapidly increasing costs of healthcare services
- Importance of health insurance
Describe the importance of health insurance
There is a high level of uncertainty surrounding future health, and thus uncertainty around the timing and nature of services needed.
Healthcare needs increase with age.
Individuals can provide for these costs through savings and insurance products. They are likely to underestimate the need to plan financially.
This adds extra pressure to employer-funded or state-funded systems.
Define long-term care insurance
LTCI can be defined as all forms of continuing personal pr nursing care and associated domestic services for people who are unable to look after themselves without some degree of support, whether provided in their own homes, at a day center, or in a state-sponsored care-home setting.
Why may long-term insurers require reinsurance?
- They need to cope with claims fluctuations
- They need to finance new business strain
- They need to obtain technical assistance and data for pricing new contracts
List the key risks under healthcare products
- Claim frequency, benefit amount, volatility and settlement delays
- Accumulations of risk, catastrophes, and a large number of large risks
- Investment risk
- Expenses being higher than expected
- Poor persistency, i.e. high lapses and low renewals
- Poor plan mix due to upgrades, downgrades and anti-selection
- Underwriting risk
- Credit risk
- Operational risk
- Availability of claims data
List 4 entities that may be involved in the provision of healthcare services and health insurance
- State provision and NHI
- Subsidized healthcare through donor organizations
- Mutual companies
- Insurance companies
Why may short-term insurers require reinsurance?
- They need to protect against large claims
- They will be able to take on larger risks and more risks than they otherwise could, due to capital constraints.
- They can reduce the impact of accumulations of risk and catastrophes
Describe βnegotiated fee for serviceβ
The tariff or remuneration rate for each type of service is defined through negotiations or being defined in advance.
This may lead to policyholders having to cover part of the costs through out of pocket payments.