Azerbaijan, Baku, June 17 / corr Trend A.Akhundov /
The medical insurance situation in Azerbaijan remains weak, thinks Azer Aliyev, executive director of Azerbaijani Association of Insurers (AAI).
"This type of insurance is among the most unprofitable of all the companies," Aliyev told Trend.
According to Aliyev, the cost of the insurance is considerably lower than the principle cost to apply the service.
"Yet companies still continue to offer this type of insurance," Aliyev noted. "One of the reasons is that many companies do not even suspect how the situation is worsened by this type of insurance."
Still, this type of insurance has appeal and is in demand, Aliyev added. .
"This is one of mass types of insurance representing a large clientele," Aliyev emphasized. "I have never seen any insurance company to be involved in this base professionally and sell other insurance products. Thanks to this type of insurance management, theoretically at least, the insured ought to feel confident in the insurance provider. He/she frequently faces the situation when the insurance company covers his/her financial health expenses."
According to Aliyev, the Association developed suggestions for both potential clients and insurance providers in order to inform masses about the real state of affairs in medical insurance.
"I have not observed special projects on development of this type of insurance either by the Association or by State Insurance Control," Aliyev said. "Both organizations work to make this type of insurance less unprofitable and fight groundless price damping. The AAI committee on voluntary medical insurance, lead by the A-Qroup, has developed and will present relevant recommendations in the near future."
According to the State Service for Insurance Control at the Ministry of Finances, over the first five months of 2011 the Azerbaijani insurance companies have collected 16.03 million manat in premiums on voluntary medical insurance (18.54 percent of total collections) and paid 7.44 million manat (33.51 percent of total claims) in claims.
The official rate of AZN/USD was 0,7879 on June 16.