Chatswood serves the life and health insurance sector in New Zealand with market intelligence, data, and bespoke consulting services. Some of these are provided in conjunction with Quality Product Research Limited - a subsidiary that brings you Quotemonster.
We believe that good decisions are more likely to occur when we have good information about the market environment in which we operate. Intuitive leaps and creative decisions are always required, of course, but the more they are based on a firm foundation of observation, the better they tend to be.
The FSC release report on insights and trends in healthcare
The Financial Services Council (FSC) have released their Insights and Trends report “Health trends: Accessible and affordable healthcare”.
The Financial Services Council (FSC) have released their Insights and Trends report “Health trends: Accessible and affordable healthcare”. Some key insights and trends include:
A looming social healthcare crisis, as aging populations live longer, but not healthier. As life expectancy lengthens, there needs to be a global focus on increasing health span, the time that people live in good health.
Kiwis with health insurance has increased by 1.2%, to 1.45 million in 2023.
37% of kiwis reported having health insurance in 2023, up from 32% in 2022.
Mental health is the most concerning health issue, especially for younger generations (with 42% of 18-28 year old respondents and 39% of 29-43 year old respondents highlighting it as their main concern).
The top reason for taking out health or medical insurance was peace of mind, followed by reducing stress if myself/my family were going through a difficult time and it seeming like a financially responsible thing to do.
The main reason given for cancelling health cover was cost of living pressures meaning people can no longer afford it (55%).
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Climate change and what it means for health and life insurance
The ‘Climate Change: What does the future hold for health and life insurance?’ report digs into the impact of climate on health and life insurance products and how availability, structure and pricing might be affected in future.
The Geneva Association and Wellcome have released ‘Climate Change: What does the future hold for health and life insurance?’ report. The report digs into the impact of climate on health and life insurance products and how availability, structure and pricing might be affected in future.
Estimates for those that live in climate-vulnerable locations across the world are approximately 3.3 – 3.6 billion people. Estimates for death directly attributable to climate change vary widely, from 250,000 to 3.4 million deaths annually.
While the short-term consequences for life and health insurers have so far been modest, the increasing frequency and severity of climate events may escalate the impact on insurers. Adverse health outcomes from climate change range from immediate to long-term and cover everything from injuries and fatalities resulting from extreme weather events to heat-related illnesses to disruption of ecosystems reducing crop yields and spreading vector-borne diseases to new regions. In addition, social unrest, displacement and economic hardship can all lead to negative health outcomes.
The report classifies climate-related risks into four categories:
Acute: risks that stem from the impacts of extreme heat, wildfires, floods and severe storms on mortality and morbidity.
Chronic: risks that emerge from prolonged exposure to adverse climate and environmental patterns.
Transitional: risks arising from transition to new technologies or climate transition policies.
Litigious: health-related legal challenges arising from the negative externalities of climate change.
The report calls out the lack of data that can be used to map climate events and patterns against incidences of mortality or morbidity and calls for insurers to resolve the actuarial gaps in understanding.
Those interviewed across 17 global health and life insurance companies agreed that prevention is key to preserving insurability – through things like underwriting that incentivises greener lifestyles and coordination on early warning systems.
“Most respondents do not perceive climate change as exerting any immediate impact on the liabilities associated with H&L insurance, nor do they anticipate short-term consequences for insurability and affordability. Nevertheless, there is consensus that this could change over the long term, although the level of impact may be tempered by multiple factors.”
The report has three key recommendations for insurers: assemble data prospectively to better understand areas of vulnerabilities; invest in innovation; play a bigger role in the policy environment and help strengthen public understanding.
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Swiss Re reports on mortality trends
Swiss Re’s latest report, which can be found here - The future of life expectancy: Forecasting long-term mortality trends for insurance, investigates life expectancy trends, developments and medical advancements that have contributed to rising life expectancy and estimates what the future causes of death trends will be.
Stats NZ shows that life expectancy at birth in 1955 was 68 for men and 73 for women. By 2019 that had increased dramatically to 80 for men and 83.5 for women.
Recent drivers of big increases in life expectancies have included improved diagnoses and treatment of cardiovascular disease and people quitting smoking. Since 2010, in many developed areas mortality improvement has slowed or plateaued.
In America, life expectancy has declined in recent periods, due to factors including unequal access to healthcare; high levels of opioid addiction and death rates; societal obesity; and high levels of deaths from violent crimes. Healthcare is so expensive, 28% of Americans said they skipped medical care due to costs, with 42% of uninsured Americans skipping medical care because of costs.
High socioeconomic groups in America generally have higher mortality improvements than the overall population, with continuing divergence in mortality trends between those at either end of the socioeconomic scale.
Socioeconomic status is a major determinant of mortality risk in many mature markets, with the risk of dying inversely proportionate to income levels. Large international studies have shown that individuals of lower socioeconomic status have greater premature mortality than those with high socioeconomic status. Low socioeconomic status is also associated with a 2.1-year reduction in life expectancy between the ages of 40–85.
Although, by comparison with the United States, New Zealanders have good life expectancy, there are many countries where it is higher. We continue to lose many years of life expectancy to treatable conditions. Chatswood examined possible life expectancy gains by comparing death rates for the top ten causes of early death with those in other OECD countries, and identifying the gains that could be made by improving mortality to the level of the average of the OECD and the best in the OECD. A summary of the research is included here. If you would like to obtain a copy of the full mortality improvement report, please contact either Kelly Pulham at kelly@quotemonster.co.nz or Russell Hutchinson Russell.hutchinson@chatswood.co.nz.
The report identifies neurogenerative and aging diseases such as Alzheimer’s to become a more significant cause of death.
The risk factors of dementia are varied, with 40% falling into the range of being potentially modifiable behaviours and activities throughout life (see Figure 10). The remaining 60% of the risk remains unknown, likely comprising genetic factors, as yet unidentified lifestyle factors and other determinants. Higher incidence in future could be influenced by a growing proportion of people with a high BMI leading to Type 2 diabetes, along with air pollutants and consumption of processed foods.
Swiss Re expect lifestyle factors including rising rates of obesity and diabetes to put future life expectancy gains at risk.
The World Obesity Federation estimates that 1 in 5 women and 1 in 7 men will be living with obesity by 2030, equating to one billion people globally. If the US continues on its current trajectory, it would imply that 90% of its population could be overweight or obese by 2042.
They also highlight emerging risks as a future threat to life expectancy, whether through known risks like climate change and antimicrobial resistance or as yet unknown risks such as new diseases or some other development.
Future drivers of improvements in mortality are predicted to be due to advanced cancer diagnostics and the evolution of personalised, precision medicine. Swiss Re write that aging-related and neurodegenerative diseases will likely benefit from improvement in treatments over the next couple of decades. Lifestyle and behaviour modifications to improve nutrition and physical activity could have a substantial impact on diabetes and obesity-related mortality.
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