Health insurance market may reach 150b yuan in next five years

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, October 27, 2003

Health insurance market may reach 150b yuan in next five years

China's market scale may reach 150 to 300 billion yuan (18.2 to 36.4 billion US dollars) in the next five years, said Wu Dingfu, chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission.

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China's market scale may reach 150 to 300 billion yuan (18.2 to 36.4 billion US dollars) in the next five years, said Wu Dingfu, chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission.

Statistics from the Ministry of Health show that the annual average increase rate of medical spending has reached 24 percent in past years, with a total of 532 billion yuan (6.45 billion US dollars) in 2002, of which 61 percent was spent by individuals.

Part of the huge sum can be channeled into commercial insurancefields, said Wu.

In China, only three percent of the population have health or medical insurance, a sign that there remains a huge space for commercial health insurance to develop.

Commercial health insurance has developed rapidly in China withinsurance premiums increasing by a yearly average of 30 percent inrecent years. Currently, 29 life insurers and 8 property insurershave gradually opened health insurance and offer over 300 health insurance products. New products and management models are also under trial in some areas.

"As the next step, we will improve the medical risk control mechanism, promote mutual-benefit and cooperation between insurersand medical service institutions and try to promote professional and international oriented business," said Wu.

The Chinese government has been pushing social medical insurance as a basic medical safeguard for years. As a result, commercial medical insurers across the country covered 136 millionpeople and earned 32.1 billion yuan (3.8 billion US dollars) in 2002.

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