SINGAPORE (April 14): AXA has thrown its hat into the healthcare market for Integrated Shield Plans (IPs) in Singapore with products that offer the highest annual coverage and longest post-hospitalisation coverage to plug deficiencies that had become evident over time in segments of the national MediShield scheme.
The French multinational firm is the sixth and latest insurer to become an approved IP provider in the city-state, which saw its biggest overhaul when MediShield Life was eventually introduced last November after years of consultation and planning.
Glenn Williams, CEO of AXA Life Insurance Singapore says the company also spent a considerable period of three years to fully understand the market in order to design products that would be sustainable and appealing to a wide cross-section of customers.
Marketed as AXA Shield, the products come in three versions: Plan A for private hospitals; Plan B for single-bedded wards in public hospitals; and finally, a Standard Plan for class B1 in public hospitals. The three plans offer additional protection on top of MediShield Life which is the basic national scheme that only applicable to class B2 and C wards in public hospitals.
“What we are trying to do is to give the customer peace of mind up front,” says Williams. “For example, someone I know recently went to a hospital where a letter of guarantee was issued, so she didn’t have to pay $10,000 (as a deposit) but subsequently, the insurer said, ‘well, it’s not all covered, so you owe us $3,000’. What (AXA) is trying to do is the other way around, where when you receive a letter of guarantee (for the hospital), it is truly a letter of guarantee.”
Williams says building sustainable IP products with a good value proposition for customers can only be obtained by working collaboratively with healthcare providers in Singapore. “If (an insurer) only gets involved at the end of a (claims) process, you will have very little control over the cost of claims,” he explains. “We are partnering with one of the big providers here, so we get involved much earlier in the claims process and can work with the provider on what is the right course of treatment and the right costs of that treatment.”
That provider is the Fullerton Healthcare Group, which has a domestic network of around 290 general practitioners and 440 clinics in Singapore. “If you go there, you won’t have to pay the clinic there and then, and we will reimburse them directly,” explains Williams. “But you can still go to your own provider where it will go through the normal route, where you (first) pay and we will then pay back, depending on whether the claim is covered or not.”
The partnership with Fullerton aims to put a lid on costs for healthcare insurance in Singapore where premiums have marched steadily upwards in recent years and have risen steeply for those in older age groups. Williams has not positioned AXA Shield as the cheapest IP in the market nor does he want to go down the route of competing on price alone, which would undercut the ability to provide features needed by customers but not always offered by competitors.
“From doing a lot of research, we found that a not insignificant number of ailments needed more than three or four or six months of follow-up after going to a hospital,” says Williams. “Let’s say if you go for a cancer treatment, it’s quite likely that your treatment will last longer than three to six months. So, not only are you covered for your initial treatment and your first six months, you will be covered for a year. The second point is the actual amount of annual cover – we have gone for $1 million (for the private hospital plan) which reflects the fact that if we’ve gone for 365 days coverage, we also need to provide the highest annual cover (in dollar amount).”
In addition, the AXA plans also come with a choice of three insurance riders that can be added to the main plan. The riders are optional insurance policies that provide for specific expenses not covered by the main plans. For example, the AXA Basic Care rider pays for the deductible and co-insurance components of the main plans, while the remaining riders cover a comprehensive range of out-of-home treatments as well as home-care services like doctor visits and nursing care.
“The concept there is to pay only for what you need or want, rather than having everything in one bundle,” says Williams. He believes the added flexibility for customers to package their hospital insurance plans as they see fit, is usually the most cost-effective solution in the long run.
Sales of AXA Shield plans and riders begin on May 1 and Williams aims for the new products to further propel the insurer’s business in Singapore. In the general insurance market, AXA is already the second largest player here in terms of gross premiums underwritten. In the retail market for health, protection, savings and investment products, the French firm has risen up the ranks from 13th position in market sales in 2010 to number seven last year.
“We are a big healthcare player globally and where we are in Singapore, I would like to match our global size. The good news is my bosses and the group are very supportive of investing into Singapore to grow the business here,” he concludes.