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Originally Posted by fidgit
I don't expect any of their competitors to do any of these things with their shareholders money.
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I expect private insurers would be doing exactly this. And, they would be aggressively acting to intervene to treat people as rapidly as possible. Why? Because exactly these types of behavior lead to higher profits.
Actually, there are more reasons to do this beyond profits. The vast majority of insurance companies (and other companies) have a social conscience. However, too few people here will believe this so I may as well simply observe that seeking profit leads to the behaviours some here attribute to the benevolence of the State.
It is also lost on most here that ACC do run themselves as if they were a private insurer; to the maximum extent they can do this. For example, they do charge premiums that aim to make a profit.
People who don't have accidents are profitable (obviously). Investing to reduce the number of claims is thus very definitely a good idea.
Case in point, the private sector experienced roughly half the claim rate that ACC experienced in the period immediately preceding the year the market was open to competition. This didn't happen by chance. Private insurers introduced modern employer safety programmes (that many here attribute to the State); amongst a great many other things.
Why? Because if preventable accidents are avoided then profits are bigger.
People who are treated and sent back to work as fast as humanely possible have cheaper claims overall. If surgery is needed a private insurer will make sure this happens fast. This means that it absolutely makes sense to send people to private hospitals, or to do whatever else is needed to make sure that medical treatment is administered very quickly. Paying someone 75% of their salary whilst they languish in misery at home waiting for straightforward surgery simply is not very smart; it takes the likes of a government department to not notice this is dumb.
Private insurers also compete on being able to get the premiums right. Many employers thus benefit from lower premiums. Under competition, insurers that don't invest to get this right end up with no customers ,or almost elusively bad customers; both are insolvency scenarios.
The benefits are the same (they're legislated), treatment comes faster (speed is somewhat optional and so profit motivation becomes important), and the premiums are lower (for most people). To be clear, this means private is cheaper and better.
Of course, I don't have to think too hard to imagine this. Since, this is exactly what happened last time. Some here will counter with "it shouldn't be", or "it won't be". And, if it's that twit on my ignore list there will be 200 pages of "evidence" supporting their position tabled (selected from for 10 million pages of facts showing the reverse). The straightforward fact is that "IT WAS BETTER".
The only question is whether private SHOULD be better? Well, it shouldn't be. A State monopoly run as well as a private insurer would be better. Unfortunately, ACC is not allowed to run like this.
ACC today is far better than it was in the late 1990s. There's no doubt about that. However, it's still not in the league of private insurers; not because they don't have the best people (there are great people there), this is all down to the reality of government trying to run this type of venture.
Politicians tamper with and ruin so many things. ACC is subject to the same inane acts of political interference as everything else.
Yes a no-blame 24/7 compulsory and comprehensive accident insurance scheme is a good idea. However, nothing is changing in this space, so we may as well ignore this aspect.
Well, that my opinion anyway.