Unprofessional Insurance Companies Make Problems on the Market

From the Editorial Board

On the 1-st November educational research organization “Partnership for Social Initiatives” held a discussion “Using Health Insurance, Satisfaction and Risks”.

The discussion was based on the results of three researches and statistics of “Health care mediation service”. The researches were held according to results 2010 July-October of ACT Resaerche, ARC and new service of Association of Insurance of Georgia new service “Insurance Guide”.
In the frames of the program researches were made with different methodologies, however their results were identical. In particular, results showed that the better situation is in serving people and customer”s satisfaction level is high. Although there are distinguished risks in the sector in the last period. In particular, Insurance companies with less qualified staff and bad infrastructure has worsened accessibility of medicine service and the level of population satisfaction. Of course, this has negative reflection on general positive background of attitude to insurance sector. The situation makes clear that the problem is in need of way out by the state and insurance manufacture in short time, otherwise the worsened level of insured population”s satisfaction may become irreversible.
The chairperson of Georgia Insurance Association Devi Khechinashvili said that population accessibility to insurance packets is rising, but still there are many problems connected with new players on the market, their infrastructure and level of their service. He said the problem is in need of paying attention.
Statistical data shows rising popularity of medicine insurance that is the basic part of country”s insurance. In 2009 medicine insurance was used by over 1.4 mln people, in 2006 it was 26%, and in the first half of 2010 increased to 73%. The increase majorly was due to the state program. In a moderate is increasing amount of insured individuals and health insurance by corporate schemes.
One of the main problems is the low level of information. Population does not have exhaustive explanation of their rights the basic reason of it that the only professional is insurance company which may pays less attention level of service offered to insured person and on the other hand an insured person has not enough competence to protect his rights. The problem often derives with state program of medicine insurance. In this case, the product appeared in the market without accenting rights and obliges, the majority of insured people do not know their rights determined by insurance contracts, they do not know how to protect their rights. Accordingly, the majority of insured people pay for medicine care in the first obstacle and it often happens even if they have insurance policy.
In addition, there were no accents about the types of medicine services that must be compensate by insurance policy while information campaign nor there was information about the services that are not covered with the insurance policy. So, there can be important differences with expectations of insured people and with real situation. Insured people cannot protect their rights because of lack of information.
Bureaucratic problems are serious issue named by the questioned insured people who are insured by state program. As 40% of owners of medicine insurance policy say it takes too long time to get finances and required procedures are so complicated that they prefer to refuse insurance.
It is clear, that although existing development of insurance market there still are many problems in the sector in Georgia. The Georgia Insurance Association founded new department “Insurance Guide” to react on these challenges, to make better and high quality service and to protected rights of insured people. “Insurance Guide” will make consultancies for persons concerned in getting information and solving problems.