HK Professional Market

The typical Hong Kong health plan is riddled with limitations which mean the customer is never quite sure what he can and can not claim.

Insurers justified taking this approach as they argued the limits were in place to discipline the doctors, as their is no mandatory scale of medical fees in Hong Kong.

When owners and directors of local firms began to encounter these limits in practice, there emerged a demand for higher levels of cover, such as you see in the BUPA Crystal and Bupa Gold plans.

Bupa is probably the largest specialist provider of medical insurance in Hong Kong and its competititors are typically agency driven life companies like AIA, Manulife, Prudential, FWD, AXA and so on or general insurance companies like Liberty, Blue Cross, Tokio Marine, MSIG and so on.

The strategy of the life companies is, it seems, to use the health plan as a door opener to savings plans to help fund the life cover in later years..Such companies do not generally guarantee renewal, nor do they make any promises that the amount you save with them will be sufficient to cover future premiums.