Actuarial Notes

Summary on Private Health Insurance in OECD Countries

By Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development · OECD Publishing · 2004

Study guide: Exam 6I

A summary of the OECD's work on private health insurance and of its development in OECD countries. It introduces the work of the OECD Insurance Committee in this field, gives a general overview of the role of private health insurance alongside predominantly publicly financed health care, and illustrates innovations in insurance products, services and institutions that various OECD countries have tried in order to improve their private health insurance systems.

On the syllabus

  • Exam 6I — objective A2; the whole summary

1 Health is a key component of the social and economic agenda

  • Health expenditures run from 8% to 10% of GDP in OECD countries; on average 74% of health care is financed by public resources, and in the US, the country that relies most on private health insurance, 60% of health expenditures are still publicly financed.
  • Private insurance plays its role at two levels: financing, where the insurer reimburses the cost of care or provides compensation, and providing care, as in managed care.

2 OECD work on health care

3 Recent developments of private health insurance in OECD countries

  • 3.1 The role of private insurance in health care provision
  • 3.2 A wide range of products and services
    • 3.2.1 Characteristics of product and pricing
    • 3.2.2 The range of benefits provided by private health insurance

4 Main issues at stake and prospect for future developments

  • 4.1 Issues at stake in the development of private health insurance
    • 4.1.1 Advantages
    • 4.1.2 Constraints and problems stemming from the growth of private health insurance
  • 4.2 Policy responses to new challenges: OECD countries experience
    • 4.2.1 Innovative regulatory policies to remedy to market failures
    • 4.2.2 Curbing the costs through health care?

Sources

  • Summary on Private health insurance in OECD countries (CAS copy) — the document: title, the table of contents for the divisions (headings title-cased from the printed capitals) and the opening section for the lead (sha256 7dcaf6aa0039aedb…); the document prints no author, date or publisher, so these are taken from the content outline
  • CAS Exam 6I Content Outline, Fall 2026 — the citation ("Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) … The OECD Health Project, OECD Publishing, Paris, 2004") and objective A2; the outline names no part of the summary, so the assignment is the whole document