United Overseas Bank (UOB) reportedly expects
rising healthcare expenditure in Thailand and the country’s aging
population to boost the Thai health insurance market over the next
decade.
According to Thailand’s The Nation newspaper,
Yuttachai Teyarachakul, UOB (Thai)’s personal financial services
executive director, said over 60-year-olds currently represent 12%
of Thailand’s 70-million population, but the bank foresees this
proportion rising to 25 per cent in the near future.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Teyarachakul was quoted as saying: “We expect
expenditure for health care will increase by four times in the next
10 years from the rising numbers of elderly people. Therefore,
people are expected to seek health insurance to help ease their
costs for the long term.”
Fee opportunity
Yuttachai reportedly said this presents an
opportunity for the bank to bring in more bancassurance premiums
and fee income.
Yuttachai’s comments come as UOB (Thai) is reported to have
joined with Bupa Health Insurance Thailand to promote health
insurance to the bank’s customers, and particularly those in the
medium to upper income bracket, as this segment is said to
represent 10 per cent of its 600,000-customer base.
The Nation reported Yuttachai saying that UOB expects 5-10% of
its customers in this segment to buy its health insurance.
