Page 11 - Turkinsurance Digital Magazine

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Pandemic will impact

the present and future of

insurance business

Covid-19 pandemic has made a deep impact on

insurance market, just like most other markets and
businesses. Insurance market has paid large sums
of compensations especially in certain lines, and
will probably enter a challenging period following
the pandemic due to changing customer behaviors

and recessions.

Coronavirus pandemic, which was initially reported in China in Decem-
ber 2019, has rapidly spread across the entire world, and resulted in a
health disaster along with a serious economic crisis. As a global threat,
COVID-19 has left shattering marks on USA and European countries,
infecting millions of people and killing hundreds of thousands. Coopera-
tion and strength of health systems in every country have been most im-
portant factors during the course of pandemic, and countries with robust
health systems have recovered relatively more easily. When it comes to
the strength of health infrastructures, private health insurance has been
one of the major items put under the spotlights. Normally, private health
policies do not include pandemic risks in the scope of coverage, and there-
fore, have not covered for the treatment expenses of COVID-19 patients.
Insurance companies in Turkey took swift actions to address this problem
and announced that they will cover the pandemic risk with private health
insurance policies as ex gratia payments.

Health insurance products tested

Health insurance products were considerably tested in terms of impor-
tance and functionality. Therefore, after the pandemic, it is estimated
that health insurance policies covering pandemic risk will come to the
forefront for many health insurance products, especially for group health
insurance plans. However, expanding coverage of policies by adding pan-
demic risk into the scope will naturally result in premium increases. So,
experts state that we may see two different types of policies: ones include
and exclude the pandemic risk.