Health Insurance: From the Actuarial Background to Product Development
In a broad sense, the expression health insurance denotes a large set of insurance products providing benefits in the case of need arising from either accident or illness, and leading to loss of income (partial or total, permanent or non-permanent), and/or expenses (hospitalization, medical and surgery expenses, nursery, rehabilitation, etc.). Nevertheless, it should be stressed that, in several countries, the expression “health insurance” has a different meaning (in many cases, a more restricted meaning); hence, the first problem we have to deal with is to define a clear “language”.
In the framework of health insurance (meant in a broad sense), we find traditional products, e.g. personal accident insurance, or sickness insurance with medical expense reimbursement and hospitalization benefits. More recently, new health insurance products have been proposed, for example Critical Illness covers and Long-term Care insurance (LTCI). In particular, LTCI products deserve great attention for various reasons. On the one hand, LTCI provides benefits of remarkable interest in the current demographic and social context. On the other hand, LTCI covers are “difficult” insurance products both from the insurer’s and the individual perspective.
Organised by the EAA - European Actuarial Academy GmbH.
