Insurance to gain from tech upgrade 
2019-06-28
Technology will empower the synergy of social and commercial health insurance and reshape the entire insurance value chain, industry experts said yesterday.
China is building a multi-level medical security system and technology will play a big role in the process, said Hong Juan, deputy general manager and chief operation officer of Ping An Medical and Healthcare Management Co Ltd (Ping An HealthKonnect), at the two-day Insurance Analytics and AI Innovation Asia Pacific 2019 Summit, which ended yesterday.
China has established one of the world’s largest basic medical safety nets, covering more than 95 percent of people.
By the end of 2018, the number of people insured under the social health insurance program was 1.34 billion and the accumulated balance of the fund stood at 2.3 trillion yuan (US$330 billion), according to the National Healthcare Security Administration.
Premiums for commercial health insurance, which functions as a supplement to the national basic protection scheme, grew rapidly to hit 544.8 billion yuan during the same period.
Coinsurance still accounted for a large share of the protection system, with 28 percent of medical expenses borne by individuals, above the proportion of out-of-pocket payments recommended by the WHO of 20 percent for preventing poverty due to illness, Hong said. 
