SINGAPORE – A Ministry of Health (MOH) study on the portability of private insurance plans across insurers could be completed in 2024, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung on April 27.
He was responding to recent articles in the media on policyholders wishing to switch to another insurer but who are unable to do so because of pre-existing conditions.
“We have been studying portability issues for some time. We may complete our study some time this year,” he said.
Announced in 2021, the MOH study is assessing whether Integrated Shield Plan (IP) insurance can be made fully portable.
An IP is a private medical insurance plan that provides additional coverage on top of MediShield Life coverage.
The study aims to address the concerns of policyholders who wish to switch insurers for more competitive premiums or for better benefits such as access to more panel doctors, but are unable to do so because of pre-existing conditions.
Policyholders have written Forum letters to The Straits Times earlier in April about their insurance plans being phased out due to business considerations, or having to find new doctors after theirs leave the panel, under changes to the insurers’ terms and conditions.
Observers have said that if policyholders can transfer their IPs without losing coverage for pre-existing conditions, it could promote healthy competition among insurers and ensure that policyholders get a fair deal.
Mr Ong, who was speaking to the media on the sidelines of a community mass brisk walk in Sembawang Central, said the matter of insurance portability is not straightforward.
“What we observe... is that the insurance industry is not competing for this business,” he added. “When you make it transferable, every insurer will say: ‘I hope you don’t come over to my company, because it will push up my claims and then my premiums for everybody.’”
He said other jurisdictions have different systems where the government or the previous insurer pays the new insurer for taking in each new policyholder with pre-existing conditions, as compensation for the risk it is taking on.
Referencing the recent debate over private insurers limiting IP policyholders to doctors on designated panels to contain costs – which restricts patients and impacts private doctors not on the panels – Mr Ong said this is a “manifestation of a deeper problem”.
“If you want to really look at the root of the problem, it’s that the way private insurance is designed today is very expensive, claims are pushed up. And we have a big problem with the ‘buffet syndrome’,” he said, referring to when patients claim for unnecessary or overly expensive procedures using their full riders, which drives up costs.
He added: “It pushes up costs also for the public sector because when the private sector can pay doctors more, can pay nurses more, the public sector is also under pressure. We can lose our specialists, we can lose our nurses.
“I really hope the insurance industry takes a hard look at the fundamental design of their policies, their riders, how to make it sustainable for the long term.”
