Health Insurance Companies Share Information

At the moment private medical insurance companies and brokers do not share information between one another when it comes to corporate health insurance but there are moves to change this.

In other areas of insurance it is commonplace for companies to share information about client claims. This means that information and quotes can be more accurate for the consumer. From the insurance companies point of view it means they can assess accurate risk and give a potential customer a realistic cost for their insurance but it also means revealing areas where risk is low but premiums have remained high.

On the 21st January the first Transparency of Claims discussion will take place. This has been initiated by the Association of Medical Insurance Intermediaries (AMII) . The AMII's chairperson Mike Izzard, will be representing specialist healthcare intermediaries and IFAs.
The panel will comprise of members of the British Insurers Association (BIBA) and private medical insurers, including Groupma, Cigna and Standard Life. BUPA and Axa PPP will be attending but not in a participatory capacity.

Izzard said: “We are delighted to have such an encouraging response from the industry to this discussion of such an important industry topic. The only way to improve the flow of information is for all the relevant parties to get together, including the underwriting community and we hope this panel will go a considerable way in achieving that.

“We have all agreed to sit together and explore viable and practical solutions. The results of the discussion and ongoing meets will be announced in due course.”

More openness would appear be a good thing for consumers as it means that brokers will be able to advise their clients in a more relevant and meaningful way. Many health insurers, however disagree both on commercial grounds and in terms of their customers best interests. Laurent Pachat-couttilloux, commercial director of Standard Life Healthcare believes that sharing information raises a serious confidentiality issues . According to the Health Insurance Magazine, Anne Greenwood, director of Business Markets, BUPA UK Health Insurance says,

'Bupa’s pricing policy is influenced by our customer’s loss ratio value, not just their claims history, therefore disclosing our customer’s detailed claims information would not be appropriate.'

It will be interesting to see the outcome of the discussions later this month.