I'm currently in the process of renewing my health insurance and trying to understand what is the most suitable plan for me and my family out of the 300 plus plans across 3 providers.
There is no shortage of options but it's not reasonable to expect people to be well enough informed to make fully informed risk based decisions.
It seems to me that modern life expects the average citizen to at least put a converted every into shopping around/ choosing what's best across a number of different somewhat essential services.
Electricity has been a big one in the past two years. Shop around they say, yet you are signing up to a discount not a price! It's less complicated than health that for sure and the outcome for getting it wrong is only financial but to make good decisions you might want to have an idea of who is next to make an announcement of an increase / decrease. I expect it will get more complicated as we move to smart plans. Half the companies we sign up to are just sales companies, they don't even produce electricity.
Add gas to make it more complex again.
I don't find car insurance too bad but I'm guilty of not reading the fine print even though I know all plans are not equal.
Similar with house insurance.
At this point internet may as well be essential. Not that complicated but you need to keep moving to get a decent price.
I'm sure there are a few others people have that I missed.
Are we really benefiting from all this competition? I'm not completely against private. For example you could have private generator companies sell to a state supplier.
The time we are expected to put in to finding what best per year doesn't seem like a great approach. Even if you make good decisions with electricity for example you could still get hit with an increase after a month for example.
Living in Canada, there was only one electricity supplier, gas supplier, car insurer and health insurance wasn't a thing.
Life felt easier and it wasn't generally more expensive.
Do you think the choice is a good thing? Should we keep it but just have a little more regulation around it. Say each health insurance cover need can have max of 5 to 10 plans. Or offer build your own plans.
There is no shortage of options but it's not reasonable to expect people to be well enough informed to make fully informed risk based decisions.
It seems to me that modern life expects the average citizen to at least put a converted every into shopping around/ choosing what's best across a number of different somewhat essential services.
Electricity has been a big one in the past two years. Shop around they say, yet you are signing up to a discount not a price! It's less complicated than health that for sure and the outcome for getting it wrong is only financial but to make good decisions you might want to have an idea of who is next to make an announcement of an increase / decrease. I expect it will get more complicated as we move to smart plans. Half the companies we sign up to are just sales companies, they don't even produce electricity.
Add gas to make it more complex again.
I don't find car insurance too bad but I'm guilty of not reading the fine print even though I know all plans are not equal.
Similar with house insurance.
At this point internet may as well be essential. Not that complicated but you need to keep moving to get a decent price.
I'm sure there are a few others people have that I missed.
Are we really benefiting from all this competition? I'm not completely against private. For example you could have private generator companies sell to a state supplier.
The time we are expected to put in to finding what best per year doesn't seem like a great approach. Even if you make good decisions with electricity for example you could still get hit with an increase after a month for example.
Living in Canada, there was only one electricity supplier, gas supplier, car insurer and health insurance wasn't a thing.
Life felt easier and it wasn't generally more expensive.
Do you think the choice is a good thing? Should we keep it but just have a little more regulation around it. Say each health insurance cover need can have max of 5 to 10 plans. Or offer build your own plans.