Health insurance providers are reshaping the way they do business to deal with the fallout or exploit opportunities from the COVID-19 pandemic, which they say has not been as harmful to their business as first anticipated.
In what they describe as a mixed bag, the insurers have seen a fall-off in claims in some areas – for that they credit the national movement around the lockdowns and measures to contain of the virus – but their future premium income is in danger of erosion because of the virus-induced slowdown in business and job cuts, and the vulnerable financial positions that companies and individuals are in because of it.
“Persons are holding on to their coverage as much as they can, although some are finding it difficult, given the uneven impact of the pandemic on various sectors of the economy,” said Vernon James, the current president of the Insurance Association of Jamaica, IAJ, and managing director of NCB Insurance Company.
Willard Brown, executive vice-president in charge of the Employee Benefits Division at Sagicor Life Jamaica, says the tourism and entertainment sectors are the hardest hit. Both sectors had total shutdowns from March to early June.
“In some instances, they have expressed that they are having difficulty paying the premiums. We have been trying to accommodate them on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration the unique circumstances of each employer,” Brown said
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