Asian Migrants’ Health Risks
Thunderstorm asthma, triggered by a combination of thunderstorm conditions and a high pollen count, is a hot news topic lately. It’s not well-known to many Australians, let alone to new Asian migrants/students that considered to having higher risks after living in Australia for more than a year.
It’s important for people with Asian backgrounds to pay attention to those health issues, including mild ones such as hay fever, or serious ones like thunderstorm asthma, and to understand how Australia’s healthcare system operates in general. On the other hand, it is an opportunity for health insurance companies to better engage with this fast-growing customer segment.
Here are some public data.
- Chinese migrants make up 8.3 percent of those born overseas after England (14.7 percent) and New Zealand (8.4 percent) in 2016, up from 6 percent in 2011 (source: 2016 census). Indian has also increased from 5.6 percent to 7.4 percent.
- Asia leads the way with double digit growth in visitor arrivals.
- 30 percent on average of all international students are Chinese, 20 percent are from the ASEAN countries.
Based on our analysis, even for Chinese students enrolled for higher education, the mandatory overseas student health cover (OSHC) insurance market reaches more than 90 million dollars per annum.
Well, what’s the marketing implication of this to an insurance company?
Promote the awareness of those high-risk health issues such as thunderstorm asthma to Asian/Chinse customers (Chinese version required) through various channels, such as social media platforms, booklet in migration office, universities, overseas study agency, visitor centre etc. It will equip customers with basic understanding of those health issues and risks. From an insurance company’s perspective, it reduces the likelihood of major incident.
If insurance companies have existing social media platforms to Asian/Chinese customers, such as WeChat, Facebook or Tweeter, those health issues could be good topic to interact with customers, and further based on those, introducing basics of Australia’s healthcare system.
Trust and brand awareness can be strengthened when you care deeply about the needs of your customers.
*For further read please click the news link below
