Case Study
3. Special Health Disease
Steve Jobs once said that when he was told that he got pancreatic cancer, he didn’t even know what a pancreas is. Believe it or not, critical illnesses are far more complicated than we have ever imagined. Until this day, scientists are still discovering new illnesses that people are suffering from. XX cancer is an extremely rare illness. The chance of getting this sickness is nearly one of a hundred thousand. Wendy has a friend, and he was one of the people that wasn’t fortunate enough to avoid this rare disease.
He was lucky, an early discovery of the cancer has bought him time for effective medical treatments. Thanks to the medical technology and doctor’s effort, he defeated the cancer and recovered after receiving medical care. 10 years later after his victorious battle against the illness, he had an afternoon tea appointment with Wendy, and he shared his experience with her fighting cancer. When Wendy asked him about his medical expenditure, it struck him a little bit odd as he finally realized that he forgot about the medical claims! Years ago he purchased a medical insurance policy from P Company, a claim should not be available anymore theoretically due to the contractual restrictions of the policy. Wendy recommended him to give it a try. No loss, afterall. She accompanied him to P Company’s office and filled in all the required documents for the claiming procedures. The paperwork was not too complicated, whether he can make the delayed claim successfully did not depend on how good was his reasons for the delay, but on the leniency and the attitude that an insurance company had when serving their customers.
A few weeks later Wendy received a phone call. Her friend got the claim approved and received an amount of 800k HKD. He said he never expected such an amount of money after all these years. He thanked Wendy for her advice and expressed his excitement after getting the money. This amount later became his education fund and he used that to pay off tuition fees for his master degree.
City dwellers often have different kinds of misconceptions and misbeliefs over insurance companies, seeing them as companies only maximize their profits and always exploiting customer’s interest.
Many of these beliefs are merely myths in the industry, yet not many people would have a chance to know more about the truth. We need protection, insurance companies provide us a medium, a method to transfer some of the risk from ourselves to the insurance companies.
Despite being a commercial institution, the mission of an insurance company is not exploiting customers, but to offer them quality service and protection, such that the business can thrive in a sustainable and healthy manner.