Getting sick from COVID-19 in Mexico could be a serious blow to the pockets of Mexicans in 2020.
Insurers that offer insurance for major medical expenses in the country lived closely with the ravages of the pandemic: the search for hospitals at the highest point, agile care processes and high hospitalization costs were only the tip of the iceberg.
One of the first measures that insurers took was to eliminate the waiting time for COVID cases, that is, a person who just bought their major medical insurance no longer had to wait a month for the company to cover COVID-19.
In the case of Axa México , medical expenses insurance represents around 50% of the business’s premiums, with about 1.5 million insured.
Daniel Bendle, CEO of Axa, said in an interview that eliminating this customer waiting time led to a 16% growth in their premiums.
The manager said that in addition to implementing remote work on the part of the collaborators, a work cell specialized in COVID was created, the mission was to find hospital beds available for its insured.
“This team did a titanic job to be very close to hospitals and always on the lookout for when a bed was released to secure a place in the hospital,” Bendle said.
In addition, the company implemented a remote care method where COVID or medical tests were sent to the clients’ homes; in some cases they provided oxygen tanks, in this way they attacked the disease early and serious cases were avoided in hospitals. Axa served more than 4,000 clients with this method.
Insurers witnessed the costs involved in treating the disease in private hospitals: the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions (AMIS) estimates that the average COVID treatment is around almost half a million pesos.
In addition, the pandemic increased medical inflation. Bendle said that in Axa medical inflation rose to 15% in 2020 -25% with COVID-19.
“We have to pass on these increases to the insured and their premiums. Private medical inflation is also reflected in the fees of private doctors, the question is always who pays it. Prices are rising and it is something that has to be talked about , Medical inflation has not only increased due to Covid, it has been taking place for years in Mexico that has not been controlled and if it continues like this one good day there will no longer be insurance for major medical expenses, “he said.
The most expensive COVID case for Axa amounts to 21 million pesos and it is a case that has not been closed. Bendle said they even recorded a case in which the patient required a lung transplant. “Nobody can pay that, insurance is relevant,” he said.
Another insurer that has experienced the impact of COVID is Metlife , whose most expensive case amounts to 26 million pesos.
Sofia Belmar, who until June was the CEO of Metlife Mexico, said in an interview that in addition to streamlining processes, the company had to learn to take care of its employees in offices.
The company called scientists to be trained in the proper handling of cases and coexistence in the workplace. The use of ultraviolet light was implemented in offices and bathrooms, in carbon dioxide meters in the environment, among other things. They even implemented a consultancy session among their workers to make wills.
In 2020, Metlife added around 9 million customers and premiums amounting to 1.7 billion dollars in the country.
The bright side of the pandemic for these companies is that the population is more interested in taking out health insurance and / or life insurance.
The challenges ahead
Both Metlife and Axa consider that private health has to be an ally of the public health system, and work should also be done to ensure more transparency in medical procedures.
“We must have more transparency, clear protocols and we have to know what treatments are being given to know what it costs. For the same disease we see that it is done in a hospital at one price and in another hospital it is done at a totally different price” Bendle commented.
For her part, Sofía Belmar added that although there are tabulators, there is no regulation that makes transparent the cost and medical procedure of diseases and their treatment. This caused that in the pandemic, some hospitals asked patients for an initial deposit of between 300,000 and half a million pesos to be treated.
The Axa manager believes that the health system has a root problem that has to be improved for the benefit of Mexicans before the private service becomes unsustainable.
Going forward, Mapfre estimates that there will be more interest in health insurance although it also stressed that in the second half of 2021 there will be fewer cases due to the vaccination day.
José María Romero, CEO of Mapfre in Mexico highlighted that the economic recovery will favor the growth of insurance among the Mexican population.
