Can buying health insurance be like shopping for the latest electronics gadget?
Florida Blue (formerly Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida) believes it can and, over the last five years, has invested millions building almost a dozen large, modern retail “shops” throughout the state, including its latest, at Coconut Point mall in Estero.
Forget stuffy insurance offices in high-rises or sterile office parks. Health insurance has come to the neighborhood mall.
Customers can browse health plans, speak to sales representatives about different insurance policies and get detailed health screenings, all under the same roof.
The burgeoning individual policy market, which will get a boost from insurance-buying requirements in 2014, is the driver of this strategy, company officials say. For now, though, only Florida Blue and a few other U.S. providers are trying this customer-friendly, bricks-and-mortar approach.
“This started well before health reform was a glimmer in anyone’s eye,” said Craig Thomas, Florida Blue’s senior vice president for government and consumer markets. “More and more, small businesses were not providing employer-based health coverage. More and more, people were out there buying their own plans.”
A recent survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute seems to bear that out: It found U.S. employer health benefits dropped from 60.4 percent in 2009 to 55.8 percent in April 2011.
The drop has been even more sharp in Southwest Florida.
Lee Memorial Health System, which operates about 95 percent of Lee County’s hospital beds, has seen its share of patients with private health plans — most are likely employer-based — go from more than 30 percent in 2007 to about 20 percent today.
Industry consulting firm Oliver Wyman estimates the U.S. market for individual insurance policies will total up to 100 million shoppers by 2020 with $500 billion in buying power.
Florida Blue, the largest health insurer in Florida, has about 900,000 customers in the individual insurance market. The company estimates that number could grow to 3 million by 2017, Thomas said.
via Exclusive: Health insurance companies try retail approach | The News-Press | news-press.com.