The scope of COVID-19 vaccine insurance coverage and possible disputes

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have implemented large-scale vaccination programs. In Taiwan, COVID-19 vaccine insurance is available. However, as the COVID-19 vaccine is a new vaccine, there is limited research assessing its safety, and many physicians are not fully informed about its potential risks. Additionally, there is limited recognition of the risks associated with the COVID-19 vaccine by the government and insurance companies, making it difficult for individuals to prove that an injury is a result of the vaccine. This study examined legal elements, insurance coverage, and potential disputes related to COVID-19 vaccine insurance in Taiwan. This study proposed three ways to resolve vaccine insurance disputes: 1. Insurance companies should clarify the scope of insurance policies and the difference between adverse events following vaccination and adverse reactions. 2. The government should proactively update and supplement the information available on the adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines. 3. The courts should reduce the burden of proof for individuals with vaccine injuries by interpreting insurance contracts and evidence law. (Taiwan J Public Health. 2023;42(2):153-164)

Pandemics and the Individual Life Insurance Market: Evidence of the Impact of COVID-19

COVID-19 has led to significant loss of life and has adversely impacted the worldwide economy. While anecdotal evidence indicates a growing interest in life insurance among U.S. consumers during the pandemic, little is known about how the pandemic may have affected the life insurance market. We utilize insurer-state data to create a measure that captures an insurer's exposure to COVID in each state in which it conducts business. Using this measure to examine the impact of the pandemic on the market for individual life insurance, we find that greater insurer-state COVID exposure is associated with smaller changes in issuances and surrenders in the U.S. We also find that observations with the greatest COVID exposure are more likely to experience declines in issuance and surrender activity. These results indicate that insurers were deliberate with respect to their policy issuance decisions while policyholders kept their policies in force during a period of significant uncertainty. [Key words: COVID-19;life insurance;pandemics;policy issuances;policy surrenders.] JEL Classifications: D12, D22, G22

Valuing Medical Innovation

[...]linking government reimbursement rates to private-sector prices causes firms to raise prices for nongovernment payers in order to extract larger sums from Medicare and Medicaid. The first is market exclusivity: the combination of patent rights and other statutory mechanisms that allow firms to block competitors for a fixed period.10 The second-largely overlooked by legal scholarship until recently11-is federally subsidized health insurance: principally Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Health Administration coverage, and subsidized health insurance plans provided through Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces. Vaccines generate large positive externalities by providing herd immunity, but in a market-based system, vaccine manufacturers can typically charge only the patients who receive their vaccines, not the other members of the population who benefit from herd immunity.18 Moreover, the benefits of risk-reducing products such as vaccines often vary from person to person, but vaccine manufacturers generally can't tailor their prices to individual risk.19 So although vaccines are hugely valuable to society, our market-exclusivity-based reward structure allows vaccine makers to capture only a tiny sliver of their products' social value-with the consequence that firms invest less in vaccines than in other drugs that yield larger profits but smaller social benefits. Cancer prevention provides another vivid illustration of the failures of the U.S. drug pricing system. Since the 1970s, drugs designed to prevent cancer have accounted for only around 196 of all cancer-drug clinical trials, and drugs designed to treat cancer before it spreads to surrounding tissues have accounted for an even smaller share.20 One likely source of this skew is the shorter period of effective market exclusivity for preventives and early-stage treatments.

Managing the risk of mortality shocks

Topics that have been published in this special issue include: direct effects on liabilities linked to mortality and longevity risks;capital market and insurance innovations for pandemic risk management;impacts on the provision of, and demand for, healthcare;and changes in investor/policyholder behaviour. When looking at the change in annuity and life insurance policy value, they find a drop of 9% of the annuity values in case of Polish male and an increase of 29% of the life insurance policy value for Italian males. G.P. Clemente, D. Della Corte and N. Savelli (A stochastic model for capital requirement assessment for mortality and longevity risk, focusing on idiosyncratic and trend components) argue that assessment of capital requirements must be based on actuarial models that are able to capture structural changes and extreme shocks so that insurance companies can cope with the unfavourable effects of new adverse demographic scenarios.

NON-DAMAGE BUSINESS INTERRUPTION INSURANCE POLICIES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC *

Pandemic risks, such as Covid-19, are difficult to insure as they are characterized by multiple factor risks and losses and involve different types of businesses and people simultaneously. The scarcity of time series and statistical data prevents insurers from developing correct pricing. We propose a model of catastrophe risk with Non-Damage Business Interruption (NDBI) policies to manage the pandemic risk due to the spread of Covid-19. The model employs a Monte Carlo simulation of different lockdown scenarios: the frequency and severity distributions of losses of Italian SMEs. The main results show the importance of a Covid-19 lockdown exposure NDBI policy, which benefits not only SMEs but also the insurer.

Covid-19 Econometric Impacts- Immediate Shocks, Resilient Performance and Confounding Management Choices

This paper examines the earliest evidence of the Covid-19 pandemic's impact on corporate results. We study the cross-sectional dispersion of corporate revenue and other performance impacts attributed to the pandemic as of the first quarter of 2020. The early business reports on this were mostly accessible through the business press or piecemeal corporate announcements. Market sentiment emerged that associated the spate of individual corporate news items with market-wide steep price declines. The Dow Jones' Index spiked downward, for example, and this was likened to a harbinger of a pandemic-induced crash. The sample is a random selection of public American SEC registrants. Our data is drawn from financial statements they filed with the SEC a short time after those early, informal reports. We examine the notion that the pandemic's immediate impact on revenue across the market in that first quarter of 2020 was pervasive and uniform. The research tracks revenue through to earnings and return on equity (ROE). We test the hypothesis that revenue changes are systematically correlated with a similar change in ROE. We also test the hypothesis that management acted to offset the reporting impacts of the pandemic at this early stage of it. We demonstrate greater cross-sectional diversity in the pandemic's impacts than reported. We demonstrate that revenue changes do not map into similarly systematic earnings and ROE changes. We continue our research into how the pandemic impacts corporate performance beyond these first financials.

Ransomware: An Interdisciplinary Technical and Legal Approach

Ransomware constitutes a prevalent global cybersecurity threat since several years ago, but it is almost pandemic at present. To a larger extent, the growth of this criminal practice is due to its high economic efficiency and high degree of impunity. Efficiency in general is mainly a consequence of its high and sophisticated technical development more varieties, more devices to use it on and more functional complexity, while impunity is mostly the result of shortcomings and gaps in legal regulation. However, both of the aspects are closely related, as combating ransomware requires adopting and integrating technical solutions and legal sanctions with an interdisciplinary approach. Regretfully, the analyze of the ransomware’s background, theoretical framework and practice shows a vast majority of technical proposals and a lack of either interdisciplinary or legal studies. The technical as well as the legal dimensions of ransomware need to be addressed to properly understand the scope and nature of the problem and its potential solutions. Following this approach, some basic guidelines about defense, mitigation and sanction methods are proposed in order to reach a feasible response to the challenge of defeating ransomware. These include the definition of ransomware as an autonomous offence. After setting out the main results of the doctrine, the conclusion section specifies the solutions drawn from such an interdisciplinary technical-legal approach.

A Study on Shift Towards Digitalization of Medical Reimbursement by Insurance Companies during COVID Like Pandemic Situation

Health insurance is an agreement in which an insurance company guarantees to pay for the insurer's medical expenses in the event of hospitalization. Purchasing a health insurance policy is important as the medical costs required for treatment are very expensive these days. This involves paying a small amount each year to reduce stress in the event of a medical emergency. Claiming health insurance is a very tedious process. As insurance companies require all documents like hospital medical certificate signed by a medical doctor, a certificate of discharge, medical prescriptions etc., at that time for verification. People face problems in collecting all the documents including debts and receipts. In the current COVID like pandemic situations, it is even worse if one needs to visit a hospital to collect documents. Insurance companies require all that documents to be authentic without being programmed. Insurance companies sometimes insist that documents may be duplicates. These situations create a major problem for people. That is why a website is introduced to help people get through this boring process and will reduce paperwork to avoid data mismatch and deception to get the wrong results. The health Insurance Scheme provides coverage to the policyholder for medical expenses in the event of a medical emergency including the cost of surgery, day care costs, and critical illness etc. This is done by an individual. Taking the conventional scenario into account, whenever a person claims insurance, the insurance company wants the original documents from the hospital. In the case of COVID, it is very dangerous for a person to visit a hospital to collect physical documents. As it also involves handling documents by hospital staff and can be the cause of the spread of the virus. On the other hand, through the website, a person can gain access to his or her documents whenever required, even staying at home or through a remote place, without having to return to the hospital repeatedly, in turn protecting themselves from getting COVID contaminated. Even if the hard copy of the receipt is lost, the hospital records would always remain available for the users through the website. © 2021 IEEE.

A-SHIP: Ontology-Based Adaptive Sustainable Healthcare Insurance Policy

Healthcare has a significant impact on human capital anywhere. Countries usually allocate financial resources to manage healthcare, which might impose a substantial financial burden on the scope of healthcare coverage. Thus, the healthcare sector must provide the best possible services at the lowest cost. This significant challenge can only be achieved through applying appropriate policies and technologies, including those used by healthcare insurance policy providers. This paper proposes an innovative, customer-centric, sustainable healthcare insurance policy model. The main objective of this model is to sustain wellness by applying technologies to avoid illness and provide wellbeing for patients by empowering self-care remotely. The proposed solution uses an adaptive ontology-based knowledge management system to satisfy customers and market needs. The proposed system creates a customized policy that consists of various packages to match customers’ healthcare needs based on their health status. The system was tested and validated using a real dataset.

This Week in the Journal

The clinician must pay close attention to the patient history, aided by the development of molecular diagnostic tests, to distinguish infections from other causes. see Review Article, N Engl J Med 2022;386:463-477 Lisch Nodules A 40-year-old man with a history of neurofibromatosis type 1 presented for a routine eye examination. Six weeks before jaundice developed, he had been hospitalized with Covid-19. see Clinical Problem-Solving, N Engl J Med 2022;386:479-485 Using Economics to Inform Public Health Policy Although public health practitioners and researchers focus primarily on improving health, economists view health as but one important component of what people may value. [...]substantial neutralization of the omicron variant was detected in samples from participants who had received three doses. see Correspondence, N Engl J Med 2022;386:492-494 Preliminary Data on Vaccine Protection against Omicron Using a test-negative study design focused on the period of dominance of the B.1.1.529 (omicron) variant in South Africa, investigators found that two doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine had an efficacy of 50 to 70% against hospitalization caused by omicron in Gauteng province. see Correspondence, N Engl J Med 2022;386:494-496

Open innovation: a growth powerhouse when integrated with dynamic digital technologies

PurposeThe more recent emergence of advanced digital technologies and the acceleration of process digitization, combined with rising stakeholder expectations, have created an urgent imperative for organizations to embrace open innovation.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis in this paper is based on a survey 2,379 executives representing 24 industries and 26 countries conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value. IBV researchers used descriptive statistics to understand innovation trends. To understand the role of open innovation for business performance IBV researchers segmented the sample based on two criteria: extent to which the organization sees open innovation as important for their growth strategy and the extent to which they are effective in advancing open innovation.FindingsEcosystems are key to success with open innovation, creating value opportunities within and across the value chains. 10;Practical/implicationsOpen and interoperable technologies like hybrid cloud, APIs, blockchain and AI allow for many more ways to create value by unlocking hidden potential in existing relationships.Originality/valueOpen innovation drives growth;new research found that 84 percent of executives think open innovation is important for their future growth strategy.

A STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 LOCKDOWN ON SHARE PRICE OF SELECTED INSURANCE COMPANIES IN INDIA

In this article a study has been carried out to show the impact of Covid-19 lockdown on the share price of insurance companies in India and also to show the percentage change in the share prices of the selected insurance companies. To perform this study, three companies from the insurance sector have been taken and the daily price data of the selected companies has also been collected for a period of 28 days. The Covid-19 lockdown was announced on 24th March 2020. Data of 14 days before the announcement of lockdown and 14 days after the date of lockdown announcement have been considered in this study. To make an analysis and to find out the impact, statistical tool like Paired t-test has been used and it has been found that there is no significant impact of Covid-19 lockdown on share price of insurance companies.

Mitigating the Impacts of Childhood Exposure to Domestic Violence on Latino Children in California

[...]a clinical study done by Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) found a strong graded relationship between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in adults.6 Domestic violence is considered an ACE, a traumatic event occurring before the age of 18.7 While the Kaiser Permanente study did not examine the intersection of ACEs and Latino identity, more recent studies show that Latinos report significantly higher rates of exposure to ACEs.8 Impacts of Childhood Exposure to Domestic Violence Children who are exposed to domestic violence suffer worse physiological, psychological, and emotional outcomes.9 Physiologically, some may experience stomach aches or headaches in the short term;in the long term, they may be at higher risk for diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.10 Other physiological symptoms include trouble falling asleep, bed wetting, showing signs of terror, and engaging in risky behaviors such as imbibing in drugs or alcohol.11 Psychologically, children who are exposed to domestic violence may develop fear, anxiety, and depression.12 Children may also develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).13 In fact, children who were exposed to violence for more than 75 percent of their lives exhibit significantly more PTSD problems than children who are not exposed.14 Emotionally, children may express a number of behaviors or responses due to exposure including intense terror, fear of death, fear of loss of a parent, rage, feelings of guilt, and a sense of responsibility for the violence.15 This is supported by evidence in maternal reports that state 47 percent of children responded to violent incidents with intense levels of emotional distress.16 Additionally, children exposed to domestic violence are a high-risk population for either becoming abusers or entering abusive relationships themselves.17 Children may experience one or all of these symptoms and outcomes due to exposure to domestic violence. Economic Disparities In comparison to other racial groups, Latinos are disproportionately impoverished, comprising 51.4 percent of poor Californians but only 39.6 percent of the state population.22 The widespread level of poverty across the Latino community is significant because poverty restricts the resources used to develop healthy habits and behaviors.23 Poverty is also associated with a variety of adverse health outcomes.24 These outcomes include shorter life expectancy, higher rates of infant mortality, higher death rates for the 14 leading causes of death, and these can alter children's cognitive, socio-emotional, and physical development.25,26 That means Latino children who are impoverished are also more likely to be food insecure, more likely to develop toxic stress, and are at the greatest risk for poor life outcomes.27 Health Disparities One of the ways to mitigate impacts of exposure to domestic violence is through preventative medicine or through medical interventions (e.g., therapy, medicine). Structural barriers are obstacles that collectively and disproportionately affect a group by perpetuating or maintaining disparities in outcomes.28 Structural barriers to accessing health care, in this case, are policies and practices that systematically disadvantage the Latino community.29 A key structural barrier to accessing health care is health insurance, and in the United States, Latinos have the highest uninsured rates of any racial or ethnic group.30 The high uninsured rates are affected by a lack of employer coverage (e.g., Latinos are overrepresented in the essential and gig labor economies) and citizenship restrictions.31 Without insurance, Latino families often weigh medical needs equally to other basic needs, like transportation and food, due to the high cost of medical care without insurance.32 In fact, uninsured patients are charged two to four times more than what health insurers or public programs pay for hospital services, and in many cases they are asked to pay up front before they receive care.33 Although federal health insurance policies have widened access for low-income Latino families, Latinos who are undocumented do not have access to federal health insurance coverage (Medicare, Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program, or the Affordable Care Act).34 Even if Latino children are able to access healthcare, they must still contend with language and cultural barriers that exist within the medical system.35 Despite laws dictating that hospitals and other medical facilities provide meaningful access to their patients, many continue to fall short and rely on family members or friends to interpret for them.36 That means when Spanish-speaking members of the Latino community attempt to access medical treatment, they are likely not receiving accurate and quality care due to barriers in communication.37 Further, Latino children face physiological health disparities and are at greater risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes.38 This may be due to a lack of access to preventative care (e.g., check-ups, screenings for preventable diseases).39 Though medical care can be used to address the impacts of domestic violence, it is clear that it is not necessarily a reliable or accessible option for many Latino youth. In many instances, Latinos must overcome a language barrier in order to use these resources.40 Other factors that dissuade and inhibit the Latino community from accessing resources are a lack of familiarity with the legal system, a fear of deportation, and a limited knowledge about the resources that are available.41 Domestic violence prevention policies also tend to be punitive and result in out-of-family support rather than in-family support.42 Latino children may also be instructed not to seek help by their families due to familism.43 Familism is a multifaceted traditional Latino cultural value that dictates norms, expectations, and beliefs about the family.44 Key features of familism that can impact Latino youths ability to seek help are: 1. the subjugation of ones individual needs to those of the family;2. greater expectations surrounding family responsibility compared with non-Latino white individuals;and 3. obedience and respect for those in positions of authority within the family.45 Familism in Latino households is meant to serve as a protective mechanism for

PERFORMANCE OF HEALTH INSURANCE SECTOR DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: AN OVERVIEW OF PERCEPTION AMONG INSURED INDIVIDUALS IN WEST BENGAL

The health insurance sector is playing a satisfying role in tackling the Covid-19 related health exigencies in West Bengal, at present. This Sector has shown a sustainable performance through properly maintaining of policy costs, launching of new policies, undertaking of proper publicity, making of health policy clauses dynamic and through extensive knowledge base of insurance agents regarding policy features. The insured persons mainly encounter problems during claim settlements, in this pandemic period.

THE WINDS OF CHANGE IN HEALTH INSURANCE

This article endeavors to investigate the change in the mindset of the people towards health insurance sector. A comparative study is conducted among different types of health insurers in India. The focus is on various health insurance products launched during Covid-19 pandemic period, recent challenges faced by the health insurance sector and the penetrative growth of the health insurance sector in India.

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE PRE-COVID 19 TO POST-COVID 19 PANDEMIC EFFECT ON THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE OF THE INSURANCE SECTOR IN INDIA

India witnessed a double-digit growth in the life and non-life insurance sector after the breaking of monopoly and deregulation in the sector. Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns have had a far-reaching and adverse effect on the insurance sector as well. There is a need to see the effect on a few key variables during pre-Covid 19 to post-Covid 19 duration. The researcher has selected dependent variables under study such as first-year premium, number of policies, number of lives covered under group schemes, and total sum assured. This is an empirical study with a quantitative research approach and the analysis is based on secondary data collection. The key results reveal that there was an adverse effect of the pandemic on the growth of the insurance sector during the year 2020. From April 2021 onwards the insurance sector is witnessing positive growth and will continue at the same pace.

Changing Contours of Indian Insurance Sector

The insurance industry in India has been growing dynamically, with total insurance premiums increasing rapidly, as compared to global counterparts. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic drastically shifted consumer needs, habits and expectations, while compelling virtual ization of operations. The deadly novel coronavirus triggered a galore of structural changes across all sectors and the insurance industry was no exception. Fortunately, during these tough times, the Indian insurance industry buckled down efficiently. The industry made the best use of technology to provide the greatest possible support to customers in buying the right protection products. The life insurance industry is expected to increase at a CAGR of 5.3% between 2019 and 2023. India's insurance penetration was pegged at 4.2% in FY21, with life insurance penetration at 3.2% and non-life insurance penetration at 1%.

Telemedicine technology and implications for reproductive office operations.

Telemedicine had been very slowly making inroads into standard clinical practice. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the rapid implementation of telemedicine across most practices. The efficiency and permanence of telemedicine services depends on a multitude of factors including technologic choices, governmental and insurance regulations, reimbursement policies, and staff and patient education and acceptance. Although challenges remain and the extent of implementation is still evolving, it is clear that telemedicine is here to stay and that all those involved in health care need to be familiar with its opportunities and challenges.