The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Insurance Brokers Association’s (BIBA) president says her business has enjoyed a 20 per cent increase in health insurance sales despite National Health Insurance’s (NHI) imminent arrival, with policy renewals occurring more quickly than ever.

Felicia Knowles told Tribune Business that the growth in new business, and rapid renewal rate, was likely due to employers not wanting to give up existing benefits for the ‘unknown’ that is NHI.

“I’ve seen renewals signed quicker and a peak in sales,” Ms Knowles told Tribune Business. “Last year was greater than this year, but I’ve had a lot of new business. On my side, I’ve had probably a 20 per cent increase.

“When policies come up for renewal, sometimes it takes one month, or two-three months on the long side. Now renewals come back the same day as I e-mail the client. Now we have renewals complete the same week.

“I’m not having renewals take more than one month. In the past, before NHI, renewals took longer,” she added.

“People are hoping that if they have to have insurance, it will not be part of NHI. You’re not going to get companies to drop coverage for employees for something less than they currently have.”

Few, if any, Bahamian employers have thus far elected to drop private group health coverage in anticipation of NHI’s 2016 implementation.

Ms Knowles said she, and other brokers, had to remind companies and other group plan sponsors why they had taken out health coverage when Value-Added Tax (VAT) was introduced.

“There can’t be no free lunch if you want a particular coverage,” she added, a nod to the Government’s suggestions that NHI healthcare will be ‘free’.

The proposed NHI legislation, though, makes it mandatory by law for individuals to register for the Government-run scheme, as opposed to requiring employers to ensure their workers do so.

However, with key aspects of NHI yet to be disclosed to the Bahamian people, many persons and companies are questioning exactly what Bahamians and legal residents will be registering for between January 16 and early April 2016.

The benefits/healthcare services to be offered under NHI’s initial $100 million primary care phase have yet to be determined, encouraging most to keep their existing private coverage in anticipation that the Government-run scheme will offer less.

And, while NHI registrants will be able to choose their primary care provider and insurer of choice, no private doctors have yet signed up to deliver services under the scheme. The same goes for insurers.

Ms Knowles said NHI was effectively pushing Bahamians and legal residents with private coverage to relinquish this for “much less than they currently enjoy”.

“That’s what everyone wants to know,” she added. “We want to understand what you’re [the Government] offering. We have no idea on benefits, but are being told to register for NHI.”

Ms Knowles accused the Government of using “sensationalism” to sell the NHI scheme by implying that it would end all cook-outs and prevent death - the latter of which is impossible to deliver.

“You cannot sensationalise this in order to meet an agenda,” she told Tribune Business. “You can’t decimate an entire industry for it.

“At the end of the day, this is not political. This is about people. We’re trying not just to serve our interests but those of the people of this country. We’re about to disrupt the whole public healthcare system.”

Ms Knowles suggested that the Government was promoting something it was not really offering to the Bahamian people via NHI.

Comparing the scheme to wrapping paper on a gift, she added: “It’s like taking the wrapping off, and underneath you find it’s the same stuff you’ve been getting all along.”

And, if NHI failed to meet the public’s heightened expectations, Ms Knowles warned that the Government would likely face many disgruntled consumers.

NHI likely has no place for Bahamian insurance brokers and agents, given that it envisages insurers selling the same coverage/benefits packages at the same, price-controlled prices.

James Cercone, president of Sanigest Internacional, the Government’s main consultants and NHI architects, told Tribune Business last August that brokers could play a different role under NHI such as certifying that the facilities of healthcare providers were up to standard.

Ms Knowles, though, said brokers were simply not qualified or trained to perform this task, and that Mr Cercone had told BIBA something “totally different” when they met him.

“That sounds nice and easy,” she told Tribune Business, “for you to certify the providers are meeting certain standards.

“We would have to become health administrators or health services administrators. You have to be trained for that, and to understand the machines and equipment.

“It takes us to a totally different business model. That’s not a role for the broker,” Ms Knowles added.

“For you to say the brokers become the inspectors for healthcare services when we don’t have the skills to do that... did he consult the brokers association and tell us that? No.”

Recalling the meeting between BIBA and its members, and Mr Cercone, she said the Sanigest president was asked whether insurance brokers would effectively become extinct under NHI.

“He said that for those that accept change, there will. For those that don’t, they’ll have to retire,” Ms Knowles added.

She reiterated that Bahamian brokers performed a vital ‘value-added’ role in terms of “transparency and checks and balances”, ensuring clients received the correct health insurance plan and designing benefits packages tailored to their needs.

Ms Knowles said that by educating Bahamians on the importance of healthcare, the percentage of the population covered by private insurance had risen from around 30 per cent to near 50 per cent.