98% customer satisfaction across participating hirmaa health insurers
According to independent research, the customers of 13 community based and not-for-profit hirmaa health insurers are amongst the most satisfied in the country.
“The research conducted by Discovery Research collected close to 18,000 responses with average satisfaction across the 13 participating hirmaa health insurers coming in at 98%, an outstanding achievement,” said Managing Partner of Discovery Research, Mr David Williams.
“A 98% satisfaction rate is very impressive and once again demonstrates the enormous commitment that hirmaa funds have towards serving the needs and expectations of their policy holders.”
hirmaa CEO Matthew Koce described this year’s results as a fantastic achievement which helps explain why hirmaa funds tend to grow faster than the industry average and experience lower annual lapse rates when compared with the big for-profits.
According to Private Health Insurance Ombudsman data, the Big 3 for-profit insurers (Medibank, Bupa, NIB) have average retention of just 83.23% whereas that figure rises to 89.7% for hirmaa funds.
“Over a period of ten consecutive years of research, hirmaa funds have consistently averaged customer satisfaction scores above 97%,” said CEO Matthew Koce.
“Close to 18,000 customers responded to the survey so it paints a comprehensive and accurate picture of how the participating hirmaa funds are performing.”
“All hirmaa health insurers are either community based or not-for-profit. They exist only to serve the needs of their members, not to deliver a dividend to shareholders,” said hirmaa CEO, Mr Matthew Koce.
”The big for-profit insurers need to send profits to their shareholders and overseas investors. Sometimes that involves not only putting up premiums, but cutting back on services covered,”
“Not-for-profit and community based insurers operate in surplus but only at a level that returns maximum value to their customers.”
Consumers need to be aware that not all health funds are the same. Whether it be quality of health cover, communication to members, fast payment of claims, value for money or price competitiveness, the independent research proves that hirmaa funds are performing at extremely high standards.
hirmaa is the peak industry body for eighteen private health insurers which are community based and not-for-profit. In all, the hirmaa funds provide private health insurance to over one million Australians.
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