Government issues fourth ACCC medical indemnity report
The Government today issued the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report monitoring medical indemnity insurance premiums, Medical indemnity insurance—fourth monitoring report—March 2007.
The report is the fourth to be produced in response to the Prime Minister's announcement in October 2002 that the ACCC would monitor medical indemnity premiums to assess whether they are actuarially and commercially justified.
The report found that the premiums written in 2006–07 (2006 in the case of Australasian Medical Insurance Limited) were considered to be both actuarially and commercially justified for all six medical indemnity providers.
The report also examined the actuarial and commercial justification of premiums within each jurisdiction and found that, based on the information available, jurisdictional relativities were justified.
The report will be available from the ACCC's website.
The ACCC's monitoring focuses on how premiums were derived by the six medical indemnity providers from an actuarial and commercial perspective. The six providers are Australasian Medical Insurance Limited, Invivo Medical Pty Ltd, MDA National Insurance Pty Ltd, Medical Insurance Australia Pty Ltd, MIPS Insurance Pty Ltd and Professional Indemnity Insurance Company Australia Pty Ltd.
The ACCC's assessment of the actuarial justification of premiums considers the technical actuarial aspects of pricing. It examines the process adopted by medical indemnity providers to derive premium rates, the approach taken to construct those premiums, the level of detail used to support pricing assumptions and the breadth of issues taken into consideration (such as recent medical indemnity and tort law reforms).
The ACCC's assessment of the commercial justification of premiums considers the ability of medical indemnity providers to meet their commercial obligations to key stakeholders. It examines the impact on premium rates of APRA's minimum capital requirements that medical indemnity providers need to achieve to reach a fully capitalised position by 30 June 2008, as well as broader commercial obligations such as solvency targets and emerging surplus.
