Before the Romanian State got around to drafting the private health insurance law, recently endorsed by Parliament, almost one hundred Romanians had already bought private health insurance policies straight from the international markets, issued by foreign companies.
Fed up with the poor service provided by Romania's public healthcare system, these people are willing to pay several hundred euros a month in order to receive medical care in foreign clinics and hospitals.
"For those with big salaries (deemed as normal for top management positions in Romania) such a policy costs less than the annual compulsory contribution to the public healthcare system," says Karina Rosu, head of insurance broker KaRo, one of the companies that acted as intermediary in the sale of these policies. Since 1999, KaRo has brokered the sale of 80 such policies, especially by British companies Bupa and Medicare. London Brokers has also sold 10 such insurance policies so far.
"Employees and employers spend so much on public health insurance that this money could easily be compared to the kind of expenses that can buy them "luxury" conditions in the private system," Rosu says.
The head of the insurance broker feels that only the foreign markets offer products which will cover expenses of more than 1.5 million euros, with services in other parts of the world provided by small franchises or non-franchises (i.e. the money is paid by the insured).
The policies issued by the international insurers stipulate that medical services can be expensed anywhere within the programme's coverage area (Europe, the U.S. and Canada, Asia and the Pacific get different treatments), without previous notice from the insurer, unless direct expensing needs to be arranged. Moreover, unlike the policies available on the Romanian market, no favoured suppliers are involved, which means that the insured can be treated at any medical unit.
Who does this kind of products target? "At this point, mainly the relatively young top executives, who travel a lot and are familiar with world management contract standards. They are interested in these kinds of services and, if they hold the upper hand during job negotiations, they even get international health insurance as part of their employee benefits," Rosu stated.
There is no official data available on the sales logged by private clinics and hospitals, making it even more difficult to suggest estimates concerning the next few years. Even the projections made by the market players are marked by significant gaps: some say they expect 500,000 insured to join the private system by 2010, others expect one million, while other companies go as far as 4-6 million. Some 70,000-80,000 Romanians are estimated to have left the public healthcare system, with 45,000-55,000 of them in Bucharest.
sorin.pislaru@zf.ro
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