IPMI premiums drop due to Covid
So says a new report from global health insurance brokerage Pacific Prime
The company assessed international private medical insurance (IPMI) premiums in 100 destinations and found that they had decreased in 36 locations.
While the US was identified as having the most expensive IPMI premiums on average (at US$7,703 for individuals and $21,817 for families) and Thailand as having the cheapest (at $1,934 for individuals and $7,257 for families), which is consistent with past reports, Pacific Prime found that IPMI premiums in 36 of the 100 destinations studied had actually dropped compared to the previous year – a change that it linked to people avoiding/delaying seeking healthcare treatment, and countries imposing lockdown measures.
Elsewhere, premiums adjusted. For example, in Hong Kong (which has reclaimed its position as the second most expensive location in the world for health insurance) and in Singapore (which is the second most expensive location in Asia), factors such as overutilisation of health insurance and a rapidly aging population were blamed.
The US retained the dominant position in terms of the top 20 most expensive countries for IPMI due the country’s high cost of care. In the Hospitals & Healthcare feature, ‘The rising cost of health insurance’, Pacific Prime detailed many of the factors that were contributing to the rising cost of healthcare.
Pacific Prime’s report also predicted that Latin American countries’ premiums may see a jump in the next five years due to a rise in expensive claims for behavioural and mental health conditions.
In response to all of these changes, Pacific Prime noted that insurers were taking a closer look at their regional pricing strategies, adjusting them so as to ‘strike the right balance between service quality and operation sustainability’.