Summary
The authors comments are accurate for a multibillion dollar multinational reinsurer looking down from 30,000 feet. The US spends about $1.6 of the estimated $5 billion. Identifying emerging trends in foreign lands will take a wary eye. It is highly unlikely that the type of risk giant reinsurers are interested in taking - ie catastrophic risk excess of $50,000 US, and in blocks excess of several million of premium is very different from products that are very affordable and do not offer access to things like cardiology, cancer, and services requiring intensive care nursing. American Re now called Munich Re, AIG, ING, Lloyds and Swiss are established reinsurers of medical risk among others.
Analysis
Identifying emerging markets interested in buying insurance for their citizenry is directly proportional to that government's ability to fund the care. China's famous "Barefoot Doctor" practices quite differently than Dr. Welby at his private office where patients come to him for care.
Getting a head start to finding these niches of profitable opportunity means going back to basics and common sense, realizing that the business of healthcare has always been about financing predictable costs with insurance. Common wellness and sickness products don't cover major medical risk by definition, so the dollars are not there to attract big insurers. There are some moderate success stories in the US on the Scheduled Benefit market (MiniMed), but that product does not offer Major Medical coverage and its associated higher premium and profit center inherent in managing that risk. The very small group of wealthy people in Latin America buy insurance that allows very expensive US specialty care, but the less privileged can not. When we visited Russia and learned that only 2 MRI's existed in a country with 8 time zones, and that their budget for drugs ran out well before the budgeted year, that showed where the rubber hit th road. That same logic holds true for any country whose population is poor, and or uninformed about expensive medical therapy and insurance.
That said, the US was poor once and started out with funeral insurance (life insurance) that cost $0.10 a week, so creating a high demand product is very possible. Getting a carrier to back it, and a distribution network to sell it at a profit will take inspired talent. Thinking out of the box with packaged product(s) may be the key to offering product in high demand to specific countries.
