Nick Astwick: Southern Cross Health Society Group CEO nearly $6 million paid out in insurance claims every business day

Kiwis are increasingly moving to private healthcare and it is costing health insurance companies.

Southern Cross Health Insurance paid out close to $1.5 billion in claims in the last year – equal to $6 million every business day.

2024 results from Southern Cross show the number of claims made is up with 995,000 kiwis now on the books.

Southern Cross Health Society Group CEO Nick Astwick tells Heather du Plessis-Allan kiwis are concerned about access to quality healthcare.

In a normal year, the insurer finds one third of its members make a claim, but in 2024 nearly half did.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Looks like kiwis are increasing speaking of health, increasingly moving
to private healthcare and it is costing. Southern Cross, the insurer,
has posted its twenty twenty four results this morning. Here
is a number. It's handing out six million dollars in
claims every single business dage. Joining me now is Southern
Cross Health Society Group Chief executive Nick Astwa Kanak.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Good morning, ere six million.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Sounds like an extraordinary number. How big is that in
contrast to previous years?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well as up where we're about five point two million
dollars in the previous years and we're up at about
six point six million dollars a day At the moment,
it's about fifteen thousand claims a day, about three point
two million a year.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
I mean, this is this is not an indication that
we're getting sicker or breaking down more. It's just that
more of us are coming.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
To you, right, Yeah, that's right. We sort of surveyed
a lot of New Zealanders and our Healthy Fatures Report
and the third most the biggest concern that they had
after the economy and crime to their health and well
being was access to the quality healthcare. So we know
New Zealand is seeing health is more priceless and certainly
demand and we had the busiest year. You know, We've

(01:06):
never been in more demand, and I guess while other
businesses have been sort of struggling in this economy with demand,
that has been the opposite for us. And so we've
grown to nine hundred and fifty five thousand members. That's
sort of the highest since nineteen ninety two. And in
any normal year we probably have a third of our
members claim. Last year we had fifty percent of our
members claim. So New Zealanders are prioritizing access to healthcare

(01:30):
and some a Cross is a good.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Solution that what happened in nineteen ninety two that it
was so.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
High, well, Heather, well, back in the eighties there wasn't
any fringe benefit tax on private health insurance and I
think starting Cross got as high as about one two
million members.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
So it had been tracking. But the last eight years
we've grown every single year in that membership.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Now, what do you think when you talk to people
about and have a little bit of a deep dive
into why they're actually joining up? Are these people who
are like exceptionally wealthy, so you know that don't mind
throwing some money at private healthcare or are these people
who are building it into quite tight budgets because they
see it as so important.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yes, we right across the spectrum. When you think about
our nine hundred and fifty five thousand members, about half
of that membership is sort of paid in part or
in fulled by businesses of New Zealand and the other
half paying personally out are their own wallets. So we
have you know, the workforces of useual. We've got sort
of three and a half thousand businesses that invest in

(02:30):
their private health insurance. So it has changed quite dramatically
over the years, you know where yes, we've got people
that can afford to invest in that healthcare, but also
businesses are really backing their employees into private care.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
NOK, it's good to talk to you. Thanks runningus through.
It's Nick Astwick who is the Southern Cross Health Society
Group CEO. This is what the numbers are doing right.
Surgical procedure claims up eight percent, specialist consultations up seven percent,
GP visit claims up twelve twelve and I don't even
know you could claim for the GP, but evidently you
can up twelve and a half percent. Knee replacement claims
costs up seventeen percent, colnoscopies up seventeen percent, hit replacements

(03:06):
up eleven percent. Skin excisions are up fourteen percent. Anything
not go up. Prescription claims. Prescription cover claims foul sixty
six percent. That will be because Grant. Grant was like,
it's on us. Don't worry about the prescriptions on us,
not anymore, So that'll be going up again.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
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