1.1 million millennials take out private health insurance
Young Australians make up 24.5% of the health insurance market.
Since 2008, the private health insurance (PHI) market in Australia has been bolstered by the addition of 1.1 million millennials, according to new research from Roy Morgan.
Millennials made up 49.6% of growth in the PHI market since 2008 and now represent almost a quarter (24.5%) of the health insurance market in Australia.
If we look back to 2008, millennials only represented 16.3% of health fund members, showing an increase of 8.2%. Millennials now make up a large segment of the PHI market.
“Millennials have been shown to be the major driver of growth as they account for around half of the increase in the market over the last nine years," said Roy Morgan industry communications director Norman Morris.
While there has been an uptick of millennials taking out private health insurance, it seems that they are doing so begrudgingly.
"The motivation for millennials taking out health insurance has some differences compared to other groups, including around one in five (20.7%) saying that they ‘only did it to avoid paying extra tax’, this is twice the average for other generations (10%)," Morris said.
This may be why millennials are the least likely to stay loyal to their health fund.
“In terms of brand loyalty, millennials show that they are much less likely to renew automatically with the same insurer as they indicate that they are either more likely to shop around before deciding, don’t know what they will do or intend to change company," said Morris.
A finder.com.au survey in March found that the average Australian stayed with their health fund for 11.8 years. If millennials remain unaffected by brand loyalty, this average may come down in the coming years.
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