Bupa 2009 Financial Results

Bupa reported its annual results this week and it shows that as the recession hits people are not investing as much into their private medical insurance plans as before.

The financial results released show that customernumbers for Bupa UK fell by 5% during the last year as unemployment rose as the recession really kicked into family budgets and as Bupa attempts to restructure reports suggest that up to 100 people in their UK division may be made redundant. A 90 day consultative process is underway.

Although measures taken last year show that by investing into the business related policies side an additional 100,000 policies were added from companies that offer some form of health care cover for their employees.

As part of a plan to ”transform operational efficiency and enhance speed and flexibility of new product development Bupa UK is to be renamed Bupa Health & Wellbeing UK and although the volume of claims remained constant the costs rose significantly especially with cancer care where over the past four years costs have risen by around 40% due to the introduction of new drug treatments that are now available to patients.

Complaints during the past year fell by 53% and 78% of Bupa customers rate the service as “very good” or excellent so the service that is provided is deemed positive by those that need treatment from their private health insurance.

Overall for the entire group revenues were up by 17% although 57% of all revenues are generated outside of the UK. Additional cost control measures that were introduced in 2009 included extended networks for cataract treatment and physiotherapy and redundancies in its preventative and wellbeing division.

Overall the entire group now has over 10 million customers worldwide which was an increase of around 1%. Bupa also reported that the health assurance, life and critical illness division showed a 6% increase in customer growth numbers.