SA leads the way in disability risk

Evolving trends in the way disability, impairment and critical illness is viewed are changing the manner in which disability is managed globally and the type of insurance products that are either currently available, or soon to reach, the market.

Brad Beira, newly appointed Senior Executive in the Enterprise Health Risk Management division for Aon South Africa, a global insurance broker and risk management company, says South Africa is leading the global market in consumer directed insurance services with respect to health plans.

Preventative approach
Beira says insurers are increasingly shifting their focus away from managing disabling conditions or injuries that have already occurred, towards attempting to identify situations that can lead to a future disability. This has led to the development of consumer directed risk products or new generation products that are optimally structured to assist individuals in understanding and appreciating how their actions and their state of mind can affect their future state of health.

In the past insurers based their decisions on an historic claims pattern where the number of disabling conditions determined the size of both the benefit and the premium. Beira says this approach did not take into account the impact of groups of people who maintain a high level of current health, exercise, nutrition or select low risk exposure choices, on pricing products for disabilities. "This area is now being addressed as insurers start seeing the impact of proactive education, early recognition and detection of impairments and early treatment and rehabilitation on the number of disabling conditions. "

Shifting market
Lifestyle awareness initiatives that incentivise individuals, and even employers, to comply and participate in risk reduction programmes, are the result of this new market focus.

Beira believes the shifting market will soon see a range of similar offerings entering the market, focusing on disability reduction. This will be achieved through occupational health and safety compliance, access to health assessments and individual employee education detailing how safe and healthy work practices and lifestyle choices to reduce disability risks.

"This alignment of products to preventative health services, including case management for absenteeism and specific identified disease conditions, and employer directed health improvement services making use of structured employee assistance programmes, places South African products firmly at the leading edge of the disability management market," concludes Beira. 

Brad Beira, Senior Executive in the Enterprise Health Risk Management division for Aon South Africa