Eureko and Interamerican build hospital in Romania

Interamerican, Greece’s largest private insurance company, will team up with another top insurance market player, Eureko, for a joint-venture in Romania, that is a medical complex to turn into a private medical insurance system.

“We will begin by adding a new wing to an already existing hospital in Bucharest,” Irina Radu, Interamerican marketing manager, told Ziarul Financiar. “We practically want to make the first private medical service system in Romania, ” Radu added.

The project is due to start next month and the construction will take up about one year.

The network will gradually provide medical service in the entire country. The investments anticipated at the moment reach $10 million, half of which will go to hospital construction. It will include clinics and diagnostic facilities, as well.

There is no standalone medical insurance in Romania at present, because there are no qualified providers of such services, ready to compete with the Public Health Offices.

The only medical insurance products on the Romanian market now are those included in the additional benefits of the life insurance policies, sold as people insurance, renewed every year. However, another private insurance company is currently preparing to release similar services.

Interamerican and Eureko partnership will expand to two other fields, as well: banks and privately-managed public pension funds. The bank could be set up early next year and the pension fund administration company could be established the moment the law regulating such companies is enacted.

Eureko ranks 14th among insurers across Europe, with 9.2bn euros in premiums and 120bn euros in managed funds. It is currently employing more than 13,000 people and ranks 4th in health insurance in Europe.

Health insurance practically entails three segments: prevention, diagnostic and treatment. The system has been working in Greece since 1998 and is know as Medisystem. It already has 650,000 clients. What is this system about?

The insured person is required to pay an annual premium and gets a card in return. In case of a health problem, the insured goes to one of the company’s clinics for diagnostic, where he is required to produce the card.

The seriousness of the condition determines if the insured may receive immediate care or needs to be transported by ambulance or helicopter to the hospital the company is planning to build in Bucharest.

The system will cover ten major cities across Romania at first, and the clinics and ambulances will be co-ordinated by a system operating 24/7 and providing assistance by phone, as well.