Aetna International sees great opportunities for the UK international PMI market. Paul Robertson talks to Nic Brown.
Pricing pressure
When it comes to market trends, there will be no surprise that most of the pressures this sector faces concern pricing. However this does not mean all employers are looking for cheapness in this product class.
Brown explained: “IPMI is a very rich benefit product. Employers do not wish to have their employees going to remote locations or being posted abroad and then not having the coverage they need. So we see very rich benefits.”
“In terms of pricing, we are trying to enforce cost containment. That often does not necessarily go hand in hand with rich benefit products and employees in remote locations.
“So one of the key initiatives that we are trying to pioneer, utilising our experience of doing the same in the States, is how we medically manage populations; making sure people have the right level of pre-trip screening, so that we are not placing people that potentially are at risk medically in locations that would exacerbate that risk.
“Plus making sure, from a case management perspective, the appropriate level of treatment is happening.”
What this boils down to is that Aetna’s global team of nurses case manage all guarantee of payment. When the insurer is made aware of high risk medical conditions, or high risk treatments, this team works closely with the patient and medical team to ensure the appropriate level of care; thus keeping prices down.
Similar to the domestic PMI market, insurers are selecting specific hospitals for cost containment and Aetna international is currently focusing on Dubai. Brown said: “With quite a large membership in Dubai, we have started to look at the potential of saying can we start at looking at which hospitals we can start diverting patients to, in exchange for receiving a better discount?
“A provider that has a big global footprint is in a really great position to be able to drive those discounts in areas of consolidation.”
Of course, the broker getting involved in IPMI for the first time might wonder if they should sell on cost.
Jet lagged or not, Brown would not be pinned one way or the other: “That really depends on who you are selling to. Individuals will always have a certain price elasticity that they are prepared to pay for a product.
“The individual products we see, and it does trend region to region, are experiencing about a 12% price increase per year. And they are more expensive than you would expect to pay for an individual product in the UK. That said, the coverage that they have is very high.
“Excluding America tends to drive the cost down. Singapore is very expensive, Dubai can be very expensive and these are also two areas that are seeing a lot of ex-pats and people travelling to live abroad.”
So what would an adviser do in choosing permissions?
For the IFA, in terms of getting a license for different territories, if a customer number walked in wanting to go to Dubai, they would get a license for that territory. But is it not worth the broker becoming licensed in other areas when he does not have the clients?
Brown sees both sides of the coin: “There are two sides. One is if it is an individual that is looking for coverage, then the key thing is check our online tool so they are able to understand what it is that they can offer. The second thing is to go to our website and look at the individual quotation, which will guide them as to what they can and cannot do.
“I would urge people that instead of worrying about what is right and wrong, speak to us and we are here to help them understand. So that is a key part of our strategy.”
Aetna international assesses the UK market for brokers and the UK market for individuals on an outbound basis as the second largest in the world. This is why Aetna International, which only entered the UK market in 2012, is putting so much effort in.
Brown said: “I think that we are a top two, top three provider of IPMI globally, and we are certainly not in the UK. So our effort and focus around evolving this market, working with brokers, supporting them in the way we have talked about in terms of tools to be able to help them involve themselves in this market, is critical to our success.”
