Aetna Revamps Private Healthcare Plans

What is Aetna? Aetna is a leading global diversified health care benefits company head-quartered in the U.S., serving approximately 35.8 million people with information and resources to help them make better informed decisions about their health care. Aetna offers a broad range of traditional and consumer-directed health insurance products and related services, including medical, pharmacy, dental, behavioural health, group life and disability plans, and medical management capabilities and health care management services for Medicaid plans. Our customers include employer groups, individuals, college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans, governmental units, government-sponsored plans, labour groups and expatriates.

Aetna the healthcare insurance specialist has launched a new suite of International Healthcare Plans (IHPs) designed to cater for expatriate employees and employing companies in order to make health benefits more accessible for members when overseas.

The Connecticut based insurer’s revamp of its healthcare insurance products is focused on giving employers and their workforce optimum flexibility in accessing healthcare benefits and the management of costs for treatment required.

The fundamental purpose of the new plans is to offer greater accessibility to healthcare, medical services and benefits for Aetna members when seeking medical care abroad. The reform of Aetna’s international health plans means that expatriate members of company based private healthcare insurance schemes will have more flexibility in obtaining medical services, including benefits covering services associated with care such as dental, maternity and the provision of pharmaceutical products as well as traditional medical treatment and emergency admittance to hospital.

The new additions to Aetna’s private plans include the revamping of health and wellness products, with 49 optional benefits available for employers to incorporate into plans which can be tailor-made to fit individual requirements. The improvements in core healthcare plans have been implemented to meet the emerging needs of members as demands change with more employee mobilization.

A key facility included in the new suite of plans is a free of charge health risk assessment – part of Aetna’s wellness package. This feature, along with other health improvement initiatives, has been included to promote the adoption of healthier lifestyles. Encouraging members of private healthcare schemes to follow procedures for healthy lifestyles has been recognized as an important tool for health insurers and employers in order to maximize productivity from employees.

The multi-national insurer identified the variation in the needs of employers and employees and has adapted plans to offer comprehensive core healthcare benefits.

Aetna’s new IHPs will mean employees now have the choice of 49 additional benefits with a range of financial limits. It has become more important for global health insurers to offer flexible plans as workers move from country-to-country as part of companies globalized trading.

Changes to Aetna’s international plans have been made to reflect cover for local niche treatments such as the application of traditional Chinese medication, which is popular with the workforce originating from the Far East.

“We recognise that employers need a comprehensive level of core health benefits and flexibility in plan design in order to meet the needs of their varied employee populations. We have redesigned our health plans to provide a richer level of base benefits to work with different budgets and included wellness features to help employees make positive changes that can lead to lasting healthy lifestyles. At the same time, we’ve provided the most flexible selection of add-ons and limits yet, so that employers can purchase the features they need to tailor benefits packages to cater for regionally diverse needs and make the most of their healthcare investments.” said Donna Otten, head of Aetna Global Benefits (AGB).

Aetna’s core health plans – IHP Essential, IHP Plus and IHP Elite – will allow additional benefits for hospice care, inoculations and vaccinations. Expatriates can also have coverage for evacuation assistance to repatriate an employee, along with emergency travel for an expatriate on compassionate grounds if a close family member is taken ill. These sort of extra benefits have been included in Aetna’s international health plans to meet the needs of expatriates who want to ensure their private healthcare policy covers any potential emergency circumstance.

The new IHPs are already available in Europe, the Middle East and Hong Kong, with plans for introduction in China, Jakarta and Singapore in the near future. The plans can also be adapted to cater for college students or government departments and other types of group activity.

                                                                                                        Posted by: Alin

AIG Reports Improved Results

What is AIG?

 # American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American insurance corporation. Its corporate headquarters are located in the American International Building in New York City. The British headquarters office is on Fenchurch Street in London, continental Europe operations are based in La Défense, Paris, and its Asian headquarters office is in Hong Kong. According to the 2008 Forbes Global 2000 list, AIG was once the 18th-largest public company in the world. It was listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average from April 8, 2004 to September 22, 2008.

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         -The American International Group (AIG) reported net income of US$11.2 billion for the fourth quarter period in 2010, which ended on 31st December 2010. The bailed out insurer’s income included the sale of assets as it restructures its business in order to repay the loan received from the US government in 2008 following the global collapse of financial markets.

         -The New York based insurer’s full year earnings for 2010 totaled US$7.8 billion, reversing the loss in 2009 which amounted to US$10.9 billion. AIG’s fourth quarter 2010 earnings of US$11.2 billion compares with the loss of US$8.87 billion in the same period last year.

         -However, after disregarding income generated from the sale of AIG assets in 2010, the insurer had an operating loss of US$2.2 billion from its global operations, compared to an operating loss of US$1.3 billion last year.

         -The troubled insurer received a total of US$182 billion from the US federal government to rescue the insurer from the brink of collapse in 2008, after the US sub-prime mortgage crisis triggered a domino effect in the world financial markets. Since receiving the US government bailout, AIG has been restructuring global operations, which has included selling off international insurance subsidiaries, in order to generate capital to repay the US taxpayer.

         -Robert H. Benmosche, AIG’s President and Chief Executive Officer, said: “We completed several key restructuring milestones in the quarter and we remain focused on long-term growth and building value at our ongoing insurance operations and other businesses.”

         -Included in AIG’s fourth quarter earnings was a net charge of US$4.2 billion for AIG’s property insurance arm Chartis. The injection of capital was necessary to strengthen Chartis’ provision against losses as the insurer is expected to face stiff competition in this segment of business. Chartis worldwide net premiums written amounted to US$7.6 billion in the last quarter of 2010.

                                                                                         Posted by: Alin

From here on

         From here on i will keep you well informed on insurance news, any type of news, since you know now what insurance means and what benefits or maybe not so good benefits offers to me , my family, you and your family and when you expect less to happen something tragic there will still be hope thanks to these organisations. Even though it seems they rip off money out of us, those money you contribute will probably help another family if not yours.
         So don't hate me for saying all this, i am not forcing you whatsoever to be a part of this in any way, you decide. I am only giving an example on what insurance would mean to us. I will try to keep you well informed with insurance news, used content or original content and you can also register on my blog if you want to either make friends or be friends with me since we are in this together. Have a great day :)
   Posted by:Alin

Basic Insurance. Why do we need it?

First of all let's take the meaning of insurance:

      From my point of view insurance provides financial protection against a loss arising out of happening of an uncertain event such as: Cataclismic events (earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes etc), Car accidents, Explosions, etc. A person can avail this protection by paying premium to an insurance company. There are probably thousands or hundreds of thousands of insurance companies around the world that are offering cheap or expensive insurance services, -depending on the type-  that would want to have you as it's client. By becoming their client, contributions made by yourself and other persons are used as a service to protect yourself from common risk. Thus a pool is created through these contributions, meaning that any loss to the insured in case of happening of an uncertain event is paid out of this pool. Therefore, insurance works on the basic principle of risk-sharing. A great advantage of insurance is that it spreads the risk of a few people over a large group of people exposed to risk of similar type.

Definition:
         
                Insurance is a contract made by two parties whereby one party agrees to undertake the risk of another in exchange for consideration known as premium and promises to pay a fixes sum of money to the other party if an uncertain event happens (death) or after the expiry of a certain period in case of life insurance or to indemnify the other party on happening of an uncertain event -mentioned in the above statement- in case of general insurance. Thus, this contract ties two parties (the insurer(assurer) -the insurance company- and the party whose risk is covered the insured(assured) -the client- .

There is a warning though!
                
                 There are indeed alot of legit insurance companies but not all of them! I am talking of course about scams. Ghost companies that would like to eat your money and when you are in danger they would laugh at you. If you know of any scam insurance companies feel free to post them here on my blog in comments.
  

                                                                                    This was my first post:  Have a great day; Alin