People's Daily health client Zhang Meng
"HuiminBao has the three characteristics of the combination of affordable inclusiveness and commercial insurance supplement, the combination of urban regional exclusivity and the flexibility of insurability and compensation, and the combination of commerciality of basic operation and regional publicity of product design, so it has been widely welcomed after its launch, but there are also some problems such as imperfect information disclosure and large disparities in the compensation rate between various places, so it is recommended that the National Medical Insurance Bureau issue relevant policies to support HuiminBao, while establishing industry self-regulatory organizations and formulating industry standards." During this year's two sessions, Zheng Bingwen, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and director of the World Social Security Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, submitted the "Proposal on Standardizing and Promoting Development and Benefiting the People's Security."
Director Zheng Bingwen
In the past two years, the "Huimin Bao" market has risen rapidly. According to the data, in 2020, 112 types of huimin insurance were opened in 83 provinces, covering 40 million people and 4.6 billion yuan in premium income, and in 2021, 177 models were opened in 122 places in 28 provinces, covering 140 million person-times and 14 billion yuan in premium income.
As for why Huimin Baohui has experienced explosive growth in the past two years, Zheng Bingwen believes that the main reasons are: First, the price is close to the people and covers a wide range, fully combining inclusiveness with the complementarity of commercial insurance, and realizing the convergence of commercial insurance and social security.
The second is to combine the exclusivity of urban regions with the flexibility of insurability and compensation, and implement one city, one policy in terms of product price, guarantee content, pre-existing disease limitations, and the number of special drugs, which has strong regional characteristics. The third is the combination of the commercial nature of basic operations and the regional publicity of product design.
Member Zheng Bingwen said that although it is widely welcomed by the market, there are still some problems in HuiminBao, such as imperfect information disclosure and a large gap in the compensation rate of various places. In Zheng Bingwen's view, the biggest potential risk of HuiminBao is the "reverse selection of the death spiral". Taking Huimin Bao as an example, because it does not have an age limit for insurance and pre-existing diseases can be insured and compensated, many of the people who have actual needs for Huimin Bao are sick groups or middle-aged and elderly groups, and this part of the population is often the most prone to claims. Such a situation will lead to young healthy insured people because of the "unfair" sense of choice not to renew the insurance, and then the proportion of non-standard bodies in the insurance pool is getting larger and larger, the amount of compensation is getting higher and higher, and the final product will have to face the embarrassment of suspension and removal from the shelves due to underwriting losses, and it is difficult to get sustainable development.
Therefore, Zheng Bingwen believes that Huimin Bao itself is a good thing, but it also needs to take precautions to prevent the withdrawal of insurance entities and the consequences of the market being chicken feathers caused by reverse selection and death spiral. He therefore suggested:
1. It is recommended that the National Medical Insurance Bureau introduce relevant policies to support huimin insurance. The scale of the number of people covered by Huimin Insurance and the scale of premium income is no longer the same as in 2015-2019, it can no longer be returned, and it has accumulated 7 years of experience. One of the main reasons why many local health insurance bureaus do not oppose the "neutral" attitude of not supporting it is that they have not taken "reassurance pills". The central government's statement means that the local government's data support will be smooth, which is conducive to enhancing individual confidence in insurance and improving the participation rate.
Second, it is recommended that the National Medical Insurance Bureau allow and encourage all localities to use the personal account of employee medical insurance to pay premiums. At present, about 40% of the regions that have not yet used the medical insurance personal account to pay premiums, they are waiting for the "above" policy, if all regions of the country huimin insurance enjoy the support of personal accounts, this will be a substantial support to increase the participation rate and avoid adverse choices, but also enhance the fairness of inter-regional huimin insurance.
Third, it is recommended to establish industry self-regulatory organizations and formulate industry standards. Some regions have high payout rates and others have low payouts, both of which can lead to adverse selections. For example, Zhejiang Province issued a document last year to put forward basic requirements for the compensation rate.
