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If people continue paying their premiums but use medical services less, health insurers make more money because they have to pay out less. It is an irony that as people struggle and postpone medical care, the insurance companies thrive. It is one of the paradoxes of a recessionary environment

Both UnitedHealth Group and Cigna have noticed a drop in hospital stays and medical use.

So far, the irony is understandable. It is like a year with no natural disasters, insurance companies make more money. Full Post…

Premex Group has been acquired by ExamWorks, a New York Stock Exchange listed company with offices in the US, Canada and the UK.

The acquisition, which makes ExamWorks the UK’s leading provider of independent medical reports, will see all Premex directors and management remaining with the business at its Bolton headquarters.

Commenting on the transaction, Premex chief executive officer, Simon Margolis, says: “We are delighted to be part of the ExamWorks family; a specialist organisation which really understands the nature of medical reporting and shares our passion for driving up service standards through IT innovation.”

Our regular readers know that Im more than a bit of a gearhead. Just about anything automotive will catch my attention, but my true passion is auto racing. Specifically road course racing, but any racing is better than just walking around a car show. This past weekend marked the opening of racing series at many tracks in the northern half of the continent, as temperatures have become more tolerable.

My home track is the legendary Mosport International Raceway, which is one of a handful of the original race tracks in North America that is still in its original configuration. The track plays host to many of the top road racing series including American Le Mans, World Challenge, Grand Am, Trans Am and even the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series.

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If you are shopping for a policy from insurance firms, you may perhaps come across the term “insurable interest” to describe people who are allowed to take out policies on other people. It may seem like an obscure term, but is really a very simple idea. Life insurance companies have to determine insurable interest because of the fact the person who owns a policy and the person who is insured by it are not necessarily the same person.

The obvious example of this is parent and child. If you take out a life insurance policy on your child, then the child is the one being insured, but you are the policy holder, as well as the beneficiary. By the very nature of life insurance the person who is insured cannot be the same one to collect benefits. It is also possible for one person to pay on a policy owned by someone else. For instance, you may put the policy in your child’s name because you want her to be able to collect the cash value of it when she gets older (permanent life insurance policies accrue cash value; temporary ones don’t).

All this is good and well. No life insurance company in the world would object to your taking out a policy on your own child. But what would happen if you were to try to take out a policy on, say, your next door neighbor? You would probably be denied—because you cannot prove insurable interest. That is, you cannot prove that you have anything to lose, in a financial sense, by the death of your neighbor. If you are not legally or financially tied to her in any way, then you have no “interest” that could be considered insurable. That is the meaning of insurable interest.

Generally close family members and business partners are considered to have insurable interest. This includes grandparents and guardians. Without the insurable interest provision anyone could take out a policy on anyone else, including policies that are purely speculative gambling, and the risk of someone even killing someone else for insurance money would increase. It is a common sense measure and nothing to be concerned about.

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AARP today voiced its opposition to legislation that would eliminate the Medicaid Maintenance-of-Effort (MOE) requirements included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that is being considered in the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee.

The legislation, H.R.1683, could lead to the loss of vital protections for health care access for older Americans, persons with disabilities, and children, effectively allowing states to cut eligibility for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Full Post…