| Summary: | 碩士 === 開南大學 === 健康照護管理學院健康照護技術碩士班 === 107 === Cancer (malignant tumor) has been the first of the top 10 leading causes of death in Taiwan since 1982. As its incidence and mortality rate continue to increase, cancer is currently a major threat to the health of Taiwanese people. The expenditure incurred for receiving cancer treatment is stunningly huge. Therefore, many people purchase cancer insurance to prevent financial problems in case of cancer. However, whole life cancer insurance in Taiwan is still at the early development stage. Because comprehensive domestic empirical data of cancer is still lacking, insurance companies in Taiwan mostly adopt the data from foreign reinsurance companies as the basis for cancer insurance. Therefore, many of them suffer a loss of almost 100% in recent years. The most importance concept in cancer prevention is “prevention is better than cure.” Undergoing cancer screening regularly can reduce cancer incidence. However, Taiwanese people generally do not undergo general medical examination despite being familiar with this concept. The cancer cure rate in Taiwan is 50% lower than that in the United States and European countries mostly because of the higher percentage of late-stage cancer cases and the larger number of patients refusing to receive conventional medical treatment. With the advancement of medical, computer, and information technologies, numerous new cancer screening methods have been successfully developed. The cost for whole genome sequencing has decreased from US$300,000 to US$30. Consumers’ ability to obtain the information of their disease-related genes through simple and affordable screening may considerably impact insurance companies, but may also provide them with new business opportunities.
In this study, data on precision screening and insurance from domestic and foreign books and journals were collected and analyzed, and interviews were conducted on companies providing precision screening and the managers in the actuarial and underwriting departments of several insurance companies, to investigate controversies about precision screening and insurance, the viewpoints of the precision screening companies and insurance companies, and the corresponding measures adopted. This study used Kaiser Permanente, the largest insurance company in the United States, as the case; its business model and operational performance in recent years were compared with those of Cathy Life Insurance, a leading insurance company in Taiwan. The results are expected to serve as a reference for Taiwanese insurance companies and researchers.
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