Kyobo Life Insurance has introduced a health insurance product for people with pre-existing conditions that allows premiums to be designed reasonably according to a customer's health status. The product is notable for lowering the customer's burden by improving the uniform premium surcharge structure of existing insurance for people with pre-existing conditions.
The company recently launched "Kyobo K-Customized Health Insurance (non-participating, hybrid underwriting type)," the industry's first product combining standard underwriting and simplified underwriting.
Existing insurance products for people with pre-existing conditions have drawn criticism for their heavy premium burden, as both the main contract and riders had to be enrolled under simplified underwriting criteria, regardless of whether the policyholder had a disease history.
By contrast, this product allows standard underwriting and simplified underwriting to be designed separately for each rider, according to the customer's health status.
As a result, even those with chronic diseases such as high blood pressure or diabetes can enrol in riders unrelated to their disease history, such as cancer coverage, under standard underwriting.
For example, if a 40-year-old man taking high blood pressure medication enrols in a cancer diagnosis rider under standard underwriting and a cerebrovascular rider under simplified underwriting, he can achieve a premium saving of approximately 16.2% on the cancer diagnosis rider compared with existing simplified-underwriting insurance.
The product covers death up to age 100 through its main contract (standard underwriting) and provides broad coverage centred on three major diseases – cancer, cerebrovascular disease, and heart disease – including diagnosis, treatment, surgery, and hospitalisation.
With 42 standard-underwriting riders and 42 simplified-underwriting riders, it allows customers to choose coverage that matches their health status.
Cancer coverage has also been strengthened. In addition to cancer diagnosis and major cancer treatment, the product includes riders related to the latest treatment techniques, such as anticancer radiation drug therapy, heavy ion anticancer therapy, and targeted anticancer drug-approved therapy.
It also provides coverage including cerebrovascular disease and ischemic heart disease diagnosis costs, major treatment costs for circulatory diseases, and special calculation exemptions for severe diseases.
The product also offers riders covering disease and accident surgery, hospitalisation, and lifestyle disease surgery, helping to ease the medical cost burden that can arise in everyday life.
To lower the premium burden, the product applies a no-surrender-refund structure, and if a disability state with a disability payment rate of 50% or higher occurs during the payment period, the main contract premium is fully waived.