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Speaker 1: Looks like kiwis are increasing speaking of health, increasingly moving

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Speaker 1: to private healthcare and it is costing. Southern Cross, the insurer,

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Speaker 1: has posted its twenty twenty four results this morning. Here

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Speaker 1: is a number. It's handing out six million dollars in

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Speaker 1: claims every single business dage. Joining me now is Southern

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Speaker 1: Cross Health Society Group Chief executive Nick Astwa Kanak.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, ere six million.

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Speaker 1: Sounds like an extraordinary number. How big is that in

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Speaker 1: contrast to previous years?

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Speaker 2: Well as up where we're about five point two million

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Speaker 2: dollars in the previous years and we're up at about

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Speaker 2: six point six million dollars a day At the moment,

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Speaker 2: it's about fifteen thousand claims a day, about three point

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Speaker 2: two million a year.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is not an indication that

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Speaker 1: we're getting sicker or breaking down more. It's just that

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Speaker 1: more of us are coming.

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Speaker 2: To you, right, Yeah, that's right. We sort of surveyed

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Speaker 2: a lot of New Zealanders and our Healthy Fatures Report

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Speaker 2: and the third most the biggest concern that they had

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Speaker 2: after the economy and crime to their health and well

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Speaker 2: being was access to the quality healthcare. So we know

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Speaker 2: New Zealand is seeing health is more priceless and certainly

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Speaker 2: demand and we had the busiest year. You know, We've

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Speaker 2: never been in more demand, and I guess while other

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Speaker 2: businesses have been sort of struggling in this economy with demand,

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Speaker 2: that has been the opposite for us. And so we've

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Speaker 2: grown to nine hundred and fifty five thousand members. That's

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Speaker 2: sort of the highest since nineteen ninety two. And in

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Speaker 2: any normal year we probably have a third of our

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Speaker 2: members claim. Last year we had fifty percent of our

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Speaker 2: members claim. So New Zealanders are prioritizing access to healthcare

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Speaker 2: and some a Cross is a good.

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Speaker 1: Solution that what happened in nineteen ninety two that it

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Speaker 1: was so.

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Speaker 3: High, well, Heather, well, back in the eighties there wasn't

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Speaker 3: any fringe benefit tax on private health insurance and I

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Speaker 3: think starting Cross got as high as about one two

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Speaker 3: million members.

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Speaker 2: So it had been tracking. But the last eight years

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Speaker 2: we've grown every single year in that membership.

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Speaker 1: Now, what do you think when you talk to people

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Speaker 1: about and have a little bit of a deep dive

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Speaker 1: into why they're actually joining up? Are these people who

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Speaker 1: are like exceptionally wealthy, so you know that don't mind

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Speaker 1: throwing some money at private healthcare or are these people

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Speaker 1: who are building it into quite tight budgets because they

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Speaker 1: see it as so important.

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Speaker 2: Yes, we right across the spectrum. When you think about

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Speaker 2: our nine hundred and fifty five thousand members, about half

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Speaker 2: of that membership is sort of paid in part or

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Speaker 2: in fulled by businesses of New Zealand and the other

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Speaker 2: half paying personally out are their own wallets. So we

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Speaker 2: have you know, the workforces of useual. We've got sort

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Speaker 2: of three and a half thousand businesses that invest in

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Speaker 2: their private health insurance. So it has changed quite dramatically

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Speaker 2: over the years, you know where yes, we've got people

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Speaker 2: that can afford to invest in that healthcare, but also

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Speaker 2: businesses are really backing their employees into private care.

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Speaker 1: NOK, it's good to talk to you. Thanks runningus through.

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Speaker 1: It's Nick Astwick who is the Southern Cross Health Society

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Speaker 1: Group CEO. This is what the numbers are doing right.

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Speaker 1: Surgical procedure claims up eight percent, specialist consultations up seven percent,

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Speaker 1: GP visit claims up twelve twelve and I don't even

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Speaker 1: know you could claim for the GP, but evidently you

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Speaker 1: can up twelve and a half percent. Knee replacement claims

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Speaker 1: costs up seventeen percent, colnoscopies up seventeen percent, hit replacements

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Speaker 1: up eleven percent. Skin excisions are up fourteen percent. Anything

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Speaker 1: not go up. Prescription claims. Prescription cover claims foul sixty

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Speaker 1: six percent. That will be because Grant. Grant was like,

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Speaker 1: it's on us. Don't worry about the prescriptions on us,

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Speaker 1: not anymore, So that'll be going up again.

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