Micro-insurance as the Basis for Development of Voluntary Medical Insurance in Ukraine

• Main Authors: Pahnenko Olena M., Lysenko Varvara S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Research Centre of Industrial Problems of Development of NAS of Ukraine 2014-01-01
• Series: Bìznes Inform
• Subjects: medical insurance; micro-insurance; information asymmetry; healthcare; poor population; regional market of medical services
• Online Access: http://www.business-inform.net/pdf/2014/1_0/268_274.pdf

The article analyses the modern state of development of medical insurance in Ukraine and also studies advantages and shortcomings of the use of micro-insurance for popularisation of programmes of voluntary medical insurance and satisfaction of needs in high quality medical services for all layers of the population. It identifies that as of today the Ukrainian healthcare system is at the stage of reformation, mandatory medical insurance is not yet introduced and main consumers of the programmes of voluntary medical insurance are corporate clients. The article considers main constraints of development of medical insurance in Ukraine, including: low level of income of the population; absence of high quality providers of medical services in regions; and insufficient degree of trust of the population to the insurance sphere. The article shows that introduction of micro-insurance would positively influence the development of insurance medicine in the country, would facilitate provision of medical services even for poor citizens and would allow reduction of state budget expenditures on healthcare. The conducted study of restrictions and shortcomings of introduction of micro-insurance allowed identification of the fact that main of them are information asymmetry (unfavourable selection of risks, moral risk and insurance fraud), significant limitation of insurance coverage and difficulties in identifying optimal insurance tariffs.