Health Care And Industry

These days, you can get insured for almost anything and the internet has created a highly transparent and competitive market place for domestic and global insurers. Some insurance is required by law such as car insurance or medical insurance in some countries. Other insurance although not legally required is viewed by most customers as a ‘must have’ such as home insurance or insurance for corporate property and business assets. Then there is a third class of insurance aimed with the needs of consumers in mind that is highly specialised such as pet insurance, wedding insurance or insurance for extreme sports such as skiing. Either in the high street or on the internet, companies set their policy prices and excesses at varying rates dependent on many different things. A secondary market also exists for customers to buy the services of insurance brokers who act as agents buying products at the behest of their corporate or consumer clients. Another agency service in the insurance industry is underwriting.

This is where the risks of any given insurance venture are calculated and the underwriter determines the premium and cost of the insurance or whether or not insurance should be offered at all. An example from car insurance would be to assess the drivers accident record. Another example might be medical insurance where the patient’s sickness record is examined. The internet is certainly helping helps the insurance marke maintain its competitiveness and transparency but many customers are even now finding themselves without cover when it really matters. A good example of this is winter sports insurance. It is reported that over 50% of holidaymakers to winter skiing destinations travel without insurance and although the other half do, less than a quarter of them are in fact insured for skiing and snowboarding which are classed by many providers as ‘extreme sports’ and not included in their basic cover. Most travelers to Europe also think that their E111 is adequate to get them treatment but this is untrue in most resorts. A very recent example of how the market is changing is the hot pricing competition between opposing travel insurance firms that has been mainly facilitated by the introduction of price comparison sites. In this country, we are legally obliged to have car insurance so everyone must purchase it. This causes pricing to be the chief competitive factor.

A recent example of a failure in the insurance market was when payment protection insurance policies (PPI’s) were discovered by the FSA to be negligent drafted or having been fraudulently sold to customers. This has lead to a huge amount of litigation and firms being created for the single purpose of acting as agents by which customers can claim back any PPI that is covered by the FSA’s investigations. Compare travel insurance online for the best deal. A further dubious insurance product is identity theft insurance that claims to reimburse the customer for losses on account of cyber fraud or identity theft. However most customers do not realise that the bank is more than likely liable for such acts.

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