Convergence Of Health Insurance Companies To Continue, Says Expert

June 9, 2009 - PRLog -- He will be addressing the CEO Roundtable Discussion at the 8th Annual Health Insurance Summit on July 29 in Sydney.

NIB recently formed an alliance with National Australia Bank and Mr Fitzgibbon believes convergence will be an approach that will become more prominent in the future.

“I think it will be something which naturally evolves,” he said. “I think we are moving in a direction of convergence so I certainly foresee a time in a not too distant future whereby you procure all your financial services through one provider.”

Mr Fitzgibbon says that as technology develops, health insurance companies will become more familiar with the idea of having a single distribution platform both in economic terms and that of customer experience.

Governments currently fund 70 per cent of health care spending but they cannot afford to sustain that level of relative spending into the future, he says.

“Unavoidably, inevitably, the private sector has to play a greater role and we as individuals have to play a greater role in our health care funding, particularly those individuals that can afford to do so and of course private health insurance is a mechanism for doing that.”

In his presentation titled ‘Unlocking member value – the compelling case for demutualisation, Mr Fitzgibbon will deal with why there is no longer a need to maintain a mutual company structure.

“Once a mutual starts to move beyond its closed customer base...it ceases to become conceptually mutual and the upsides to demutualisation are very substantial as our company has found and of course the other factor is its very popular,” he said.

http://www.healthinsurancesummit.com

To arrange a media pass, request more information or arrange speaker interviews at the Health Insurance Summit please contact:
John Wilson on 02 9080 4107 or john.wilson@informa.com.au

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