Health insurance: landscape overhaul

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has recently been addressing the evolution of health insurance for the next five years. The rating agency has revealed that regulatory changes introduced by Solvency II and the national inter-professional agreement (ANI) will revolutionize this class of insurance business.

According to S&P, the shareholder’s equity requirement introduced by Solvency II will trigger a reduction in the number of mutuals under the effect of mergers. This number was already halved between 2006 and 2014. Traditional health insurers will see their weight increase but the diversity of the products supplied will be reduced. Competition will, nonetheless, remain quite big and will exert pressure on tariffs. S&P is also counting on the growth of complementary insurance market. Today, health insurance is worth 32 billion EUR (35 billion USD) in premiums.