Health, wealth and happiness are probably three of the most important – if not the most important – priorities in our life. Which do people value most – health, wealth or happiness? When we posed this question to 130 people at a seminar in Dubai, over two thirds rated health as their top priority, followed by happiness, then wealth. We can have all the money in the world, but illness will still prevent us from being happy. Poor health, even in terms of general lack of fitness and well-being, can make us unproductive in our work, while illness can cost us dearly in lost income and in medical bills. Yet in many instances, this is something we choose – unwittingly, of course.
Lifestyle diseases in the region
The GCC has among the highest prevalence of lifestyle diseases – those that are determined by our own bad habits. The rate of diabetes is already above average and rising all the time. The most recent estimate from the International Diabetes Federation shows that almost 20% of the UAE’s population is diabetic. Another 20% is pre-diabetic.
Lack of physical exercise, poor diet, obesity and smoking all contribute to these statistics, and to a list of other serious ailments, including cardiovascular disease and several forms of cancer. Smoking is widespread, including in some indoor spaces where it has been banned in many other countries; cigarettes are cheap and shisha pipes have become a popular social activity. The consequence is a poorer quality of life, and sometimes, ongoing and expensive medical treatment.
Health officials in the region are working hard to change this. One of the latest initiatives is from the Dubai Health Authority, linking healthy lifestyles to mandatory health insurance. Under the plan, exercise data, such as visits to the gym and information from fitness tracking apps, is being linked to “reward points” attached to people’s medical insurance accounts. Improved habits will earn free or discounted access to specialised health professionals or services, healthy meal vouchers, and gym memberships. This reflects an understanding that looking after your health is an exercise in risk management, and should be the first line of defence against illness.
Insurance and health
Insurance cannot replace a healthy lifestyle, nor should it be seen as an excuse for an unhealthy one, but rather it exists “just in case” someone requires medical attention. While many people ignore the risks of an unhealthy lifestyle, the insurance industry does not. When setting individual premiums, our lifestyle choices are studied to create a mathematical prediction of how likely it is that bad habits will result in the insurer needing to pay for treatment. Someone who is considered obese is more likely to need treatment for a whole host of conditions, such as heart disease, strokes, and musculoskeletal and joint disorders. That calculation must be built into the price.
Private medical insurers try to ensure their clients understand this when signing legally binding contracts, educating on the need for full disclosure. In the UAE market, where most policies are issued through employers, the same message must be emphasised to business managers as well as to the end user. Even for large groups of employees, where the volume of insured members means individual disclosure is not required, the cost of covering those with unhealthy lifestyles will be seen in the high utilisation of treatment and claim expenses.
A proportion of customers will recognise that admitting they are overweight could mean an increased premium, and therefore misguidedly choose to withhold this information to save on the immediate cost. They may not fully understand they are actually not telling the insurer what level of cover they need; if they are dishonest, and then develop illnesses after non-disclosure, the insurer doesn’t have to pay for treatment. The message should be that it is always better in the long term to over-disclose issues related to your health, rather than under-disclose; most can be discounted as irrelevant to cost, and the customer will never need to worry about the policy not paying out.
And perhaps by emphasising the impact of those issues that do affect health outcomes, and therefore premiums, the private medical insurance industry can steer people towards better habits. Insurers really do put a price on our lifestyle choices, measuring the cost to health, wealth and, ultimately, the cost of poor health to our happiness.
Mr Peter Allen is a Non-Executive Director with Nexus Group.