The high cost of capital is thwarting the expansion of personal medical health insurance industry, the Chief Executive Officer of Acacia Health Insurance Limited, Dr Dan Armooh, has said.
In accordance with him, some private corporations had collapsed attributable to financial difficulties.
Speaking during an interaction with journalists concerning the private medical health insurance industry, Dr Armooh stressed that low-cost capital would help the industry to flourish.
“The prospects of the private medical health insurance industry is big and shiny since insurance penetration within the country is mostly low and personal health industry ought to be supported to thrive,” he said.
Dr Armooh said the present arrangement where the National Health Insurance Scheme took a piece of all medical health insurance business was hampering the expansion of the private medical health insurance industry.
“Until the NHIS shrunk its services and ceded a number of the services for the private sector operators, the private medical health insurance corporations will proceed to suffer,” he said.
Turning his give attention to Acacia Health Insurance, a member of the Enterprise Group, he said regardless of the difficulties facing some private medical health insurance corporations, his outfit was well capitalised to satisfy its financial obligations.
He said the corporate’s capital adequacy ratio stood at 167 per cent, well above the regulatory threshold of 150 per cent.
“Although, the minimum capital requirement for players within the private medical health insurance scheme is GH¢5.4million, Acacia Health Insurance Limited, has stated capital of GH¢18. 6million,” he said.
Dr Armooh said his outfit which began about 10 years ago as Mutual Health Insurance Scheme that was operating without profit motive was acquired within the Enterprise Group in 2021 and now a Limited Liability Company.
He explained that the corporate was currently serving greater than 34,000 customers across the country, stressing that “Our vision in the following to 3 years is to extend our membership to 60,000 and the long priority to realize 100,000 membership,” he said.
He said the 14 private medical health insurance corporations currently had a complete customer base of 300, 000.
The CEO said the corporate served clients within the mining, banking and finance, telecommunications, agriculture sectors, non-governmental organisations, foreign missions and churches.
“Since Acacia’s inception, the corporate has paid greater than GH¢182, 000,000, as claims,” DrArmooh said, adding that it was one in every of the private corporations which paid claims promptly.
He said Acacia had almost 700,000 service providers across the country and with the corporate’s Identity Card members could access health care in any a part of the country.
Touching on the long run outlook of the corporate, DrArmooh said the target was to deploy digital technology to serve clients well.
“We would like to construct synergies with our service providers to higher service our clients,” he said.
DrArmooh said Acacia would by the top of the yr, launch a recent product to serve the family and individuals.
He observed that the prospects of the private medical health insurance scheme was huge and shiny.
The Project Coordinator of the EnterpriseGroup Communications and Synergy Department, MsFahimah Nelson, said the interaction formed a part of the Advantage Seminar which began in 2021 and held quarterly to debate problems with public concern.
She said the aim of the Acacia Health Insurance Limited programme was to share insights on the operations of personal medical health insurance corporations within the country.
