Lyrone Burrows, President, Family Guardian along with other life and health insurers, adds his voice to the growing chorus advising persons currently covered by health insurance to hold on to their coverage in the face of the uncertainties of Government’s NHI plans and risks that lapsed policies may not be renewable.

The advice from various members of the Bahamas Insurance Association came as government steps up its plans and its public relations campaign in the lead-up to the introduction of a National Health Insurance (NHI) initiative – a promise the Government has said it will deliver though details are still being worked out and the plan appears to be in the consultative stage.

Lyrone Burrows, President, Family Guardian, said uncertainties about NHI and the government’s plan prompted the call urging those holding private insurance coverage, whether group or individual, to retain it.

“The government has confirmed its intention to roll out its National Health Insurance initiative beginning April 2016 with the first phase of this program to include its adapted version of primary care,” said Burrows. “As is the case with most new national health programs, we anticipate that there will be some challenges during the implementation stages.

“These challenges may be, but are not limited to, lack of access to the provider of your choice, inadequate staffing, less than timely care and a dearth of medical supplies. Given the uncertainties that may abound, and based on the government’s pronouncement that the initial launch of NHI will not carry a direct cost to the consumer, it would be remiss of me not to recommend to all persons and employer groups currently covered under a private health insurance contract to, if at all possible, maintain their private coverage, which will afford them the best of both worlds.

“They will be able to measure the quality of care available under NHI against that of their private coverage, while at the same time, ensuring that their access to all other healthcare services not comprehensively offered by NHI (catastrophic coverage, overseas care, vision, dental, etc.) remains available.”

Lynda Gibson, Atlantic Medical, agreed and expressed concern that even a temporary lapse could have serious consequences.

“While we await more details about Government’s National Health Insurance plan and its specifics, we urge all who are currently holding private health insurance coverage to continue to maintain that coverage and ensure that the benefits their policy provides do not lapse,” said Gibson.

“In the insurance industry, we do not like to talk about life and death situations, but the reality is that there are cases where health insurance coverage could make a difference between life and death,” she said. “In a case that I am particularly familiar with, a Bahamian family was going through a tough patch financially. They came very close to letting their health insurance lapse. The husband said he was not a gambler and did not want to take a risk, they would have to find something else to forego. Two months after they agreed to hold on to the policy, he suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm and nearly died. He had to be airlifted to a facility in the U.S. where they could perform a very complex surgical procedure that could not be performed here. Six months later, he was back to work and today, three years later, he is in great health. But that insurance bill was more than $200,000 and had he not retained the coverage, the outcome might have been very different.”

“There are still a great number of unknowns with regard to the government’s plan – what it will cover, whether coverage is limited to local providers, how it will impact private medical care, including long-term nursing or caregiving staff, what its limits for catastrophic illnesses will be,” said Felicia Knowles, Lampkin and Company Insurance Brokers and Benefits Consultants Ltd. “NHI is a work in progress. Why would you trade something you know and are sure of for something that is still an unknown, especially when it comes to something as important as your health or the health of a loved one? As insurance professionals, we see claims every day from people who never have predicted that they would need their coverage but were grateful to have had it when the need did arise.”

“Insurance coverage is, in some ways, like relationships,” she said. “It is a lot easier to hold on to one that to try to win a lost one back.”