Press Release 24/06/2009

STATISTICS FOR PRIVATE MEDICAL-PHARMACEUTICAL INSURANCE COMPANIES (ESL) 2007

There was a 9.4% rise in the number of people with private healthcare insurance in the Basque Country in 2007

The greatest increase was in the number of individual or family policies (10.2%)

The total number of people covered by private healthcare insurance with companies operating in the Basque Country in 2007 came to 377,364, which was 9.4% up on the previous year, according to Eustat data. This increase is the highest recorded in recent years, since the steady increase of the number of people insured began in 2004.

The majority of the insured (48.3%) had an individual or family policy, followed by collective insurance (directly taken out by a company for its employees or other specific collectives) with 35.6% and public mutual societies (16.6%).

Graph 1: Number of insured by type of policy 1997-2007

Source: EUSTAT

In the same way as the previous year, the number of people with health insurance increased in all types of policy. In particular, the number of people with individual or family policies increased the most and was up 10.2% compared to 2006, ahead of the collective insurance (9.4%), which had performed the best over the previous eight years, and public mutual societies (7.2%).



The vast majority of policy holders (97%) preferred private medical insurance with general healthcare coverage, which covers primary care and hospitalisation, compared to the 3% who had opted for a specific care policy (such as dental, specialised or primary care).

The total value of premiums collected by the healthcare insurance sector in 2007 came to 202.9 million euros, which represented 4% of the total for Spain and 0.3% GDP of the Basque Country. With respect to the previous year, the volume of premiums was up by 9.2%, below the growth level registered for Spain as a whole (9.9%).

As far as health care activity was concerned, people with medical healthcare insurance made a total of 1,275,385 medical visits (2.2% up on 2006), making an average of 3.4 visits to the doctor. The specialists in greatest demand were orthopaedics, obstetrics, paediatrics and ophthalmology. This gave rise to 52,205 hospital admissions, with an average hospital stay of 3 days, and 35,219 operations. The greatest number of hospital admissions involved the branches of general surgery, orthopaedics, gynaecology and ophthamology.

Table 1: Evolution of Private Medical-Pharmaceutical Insurance Companies

Source for the Basque Country: Eustat

Source for Spain: ICEA (Pension Funds and Insurance Companies Cooperative Research)

Methodology note: these statistics contain information from the private medical-pharmaceutical insurance companies with a branch in the Basque Country.

For further information:

Basque Statistics Office C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz Tlf:+34-945-01 75 00 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01 E-mail: eustat@eustat.es Contact: Maite Ugarte Tlf:+34-945-01 75 47 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01 Online press releases: www.eustat.eus Databank: www.eustat.eus/bancopx/english/indice.aspx