[June 30, Shanghai] On June 28-29, the 2017 China Health Insurance Industry Innovation International Summit was successfully held in Shanghai. MGEN, a leader of French mutual insurance and France's largest health mutual insurer, appeared at the summit to share its sustainable operating model and successful experience with the Chinese insurance industry.
The State Council's "Healthy China 2030" Planning Outline sets out the goal of achieving a mature and well-established universal medical insurance system by 2030. As an important part of building a healthy China, health insurance deserves particular attention. Meanwhile, mutual insurance, as an emerging insurance format in China, has also ushered in a new chapter of development this year - China's first batch of mutual insurance organizations has been approved to officially open for business. To this end, MGEN CEO Mr. Jean-Louis Davet shared at the summit MGEN's unique management model and its success stories of providing members with sustainable health protection through innovative means such as high technology, hoping to offer reference ideas for building mutual insurance with Chinese characteristics.
Mr. Jean-Louis Davet, CEO of France's MGEN, delivers a speech at the 2017 China Health Insurance Innovation International Summit
Built on Solidarity and Mutual Aid: Becoming the Leader of French Mutual Insurance
With "solidarity and mutual aid" as its core value, mutual insurance is an insurance model with a long history and full of vitality. Although this format has only just entered the Chinese market, internationally mutual insurance accounts for as much as 27% of the market and has long been a mainstream insurance model in many countries and regions around the world, including the United States, Japan and Europe. In Europe, MGEN, France's first health mutual insurer, was founded more than 70 years ago. While managing part of the basic medical insurance entrusted by the state, it also provides supplementary medical insurance and other social health services to nearly 4 million member policyholders, making it a backbone of the French social security system. In 2015, MGEN's annual premium income reached 2.1 billion euros (about RMB 16.1 billion).
Since its birth, mutual insurance has adopted a management model in which all member policyholders share ownership and governance; ownership and decision-making power belong to all members. This builds a longer-term, trust-based relationship between members and the institution. Upholding this model, MGEN has built a two-way communication mechanism through which members have both the right and the obligation to participate in major decisions such as coverage design and premium pricing. Mr. Davet believes that the shared-ownership and shared-governance model more effectively connects people with the same health protection needs and builds close, long-term relationships; at the same time, this relationship ensures that MGEN's product design starts from members' genuine protection needs - this is the essence of mutual insurance and the cornerstone of MGEN's vigorous development.
Controlling Costs Through Innovation to Provide Sustainable, High-Quality Health Protection
Although mutual insurance has a long history, through continuous innovation this insurance format is providing members with quality, reliable services and long-term, stable protection by various innovative means. Take MGEN as an example: the institution controls costs through innovative measures such as medical service network management and risk prevention, which not only eases its medical expenditure burden but also helps maintain members' long-term health, thereby fulfilling mutual insurance's mission of serving members' well-being.
MGEN has built an extensive cooperation network of medical services and products in France. By signing cooperation agreements with medical institutions and suppliers, it enables members to obtain medical services and products at preferential prices. Take the Optistya program as an example: at MGEN's 8,000 contracted Optistya optical stores, after reimbursement by social security and supplementary medical insurance, members pay only one quarter of what they would at ordinary stores, so 85% of members choose to get their glasses at contracted stores.
In addition to reducing costs through its medical cooperation network, MGEN has long been committed to risk-prevention education for the public, members and employers, and relies on new technologies to provide members with personalized disease-prevention services. For the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, MGEN has built the Vivoptim digital platform, which collects and analyzes members' cardiovascular health data and provides personalized health advice, relevant medical information and remote guidance from professional health coaches. The program is expected to save members 20% of their medical expenses.
With International Mutual Aid as Its Vision: Supporting the Sustainable Development of Mutual Insurance in China
Promoting international mutual aid has always been MGEN's pursuit and vision. At present, MGEN has successfully promoted mutual insurance projects in Europe and West Africa, earning the support and recognition of local governments, the industry and the public. In recent years, carrying its successful experience and mature model in mutual insurance, MGEN has come to China to actively join hands with domestic peers to explore a mutual insurance model with Chinese characteristics.
MGEN CEO Mr. Jean-Louis Davet said: "We hope to share MGEN's successful experience in sustainable development with our Chinese partners, and we also look forward to bringing the knowledge and experience accumulated here to the world, so that mutual insurance can continue to innovate and develop and realize the beautiful vision of international mutual aid." (End)
Source: Caijing.com.cn 2017-07-01