The devastating effects of the pandemic may dampen risk-taking in the health-tech arena, but one insurer is jumping in to help.

While already a rapidly growing area within healthcare globally, the impact of COVID-19 has accelerated the uptake of digital health services such as remote medical consultations and wearable health monitoring gadgets.

The number of telehealth users across Asia, had risen sharply in early 2020, making it an attractive sector to new entrants and investors. Due to the risks involved in such tech ventures, firms currently have to purchase individual policies for each risk class. Now, specialist insurer Beazley has launched a comprehensive all-on-one modular insurance policy to ease the hassles involved.

The insurance plan offers four pillars of cover to ensure health and technology policyholders are not left with unexpected gaps in coverage. These include:

  • Medical malpractice and professional indemnity are included as standard and cover bodily injury to any patient caused by a negligent act, accident or cyber incident.
  • Tech and media liability cover technology platforms or products such as computer or telecommunications hardware or software, or related electronic products, against failure.
  • Public and products liability provide full coverage for accidents resulting in bodily injury and property damage caused by products, including tech products such as wearables and self-monitoring healthcare devices.
  • Cyber cover protects against a broad range of cyber threats, including business interruption; cyber extortion and data recovery loss; data and network liability.

No-gap cover supports meditech

The “virtual care” insurance has launched in Singapore and Hong Kong where the firm also provides optional extensions catering to various business needs, including mitigation costs, medical regulatory costs, claims due to loss of documents, and reputational damage costs.

The policy also covers a range of lifestyle and wellness technologies that assist users with managing their lifestyle choices.

Evan Smith, Beazley’s global head of miscellaneous medical and life sciences, said: “COVID-19 has driven a mass uptake of digital health services globally. The adoption of such technologies comes with a wide range of interconnected risks that are distinct from traditional healthcare exposures, such as data privacy and security concerns, and technology failure. Beazley Virtual Care addresses the complexity of these risks by offering no-gap cover in one policy for healthcare and tech providers.”

The launch of the policy in the region follows successful launches over the past three years in North America, the UK and Spain.