Living a Colorful Life with a Healthy Liver
CTBC Financial Holding Co., Ltd
The goal is to provide patients with hepatitis B with one-time and multiple-time benefits for disease management, care and major critical care expenses, to cover high medical expenses and care costs, and to effectively reduce the families’ burdens.
INTRODUCTION
According to official statistics over the years, chronic liver disease and liver cirrhosis are among the top 10 causes of death in Taiwan each year. The vast majority are caused by the hepatitis virus. Liver cancer, which has been on the list for the top ten causes of death in Taiwan for many years, takes about 7,000 people’s lives every year. Of these, about 90% are due to complications of chronic hepatitis. There are nearly 3 million hepatitis B carriers in Taiwan. Therefore, Liver Disease is Taiwan’s national disease, and the hepatitis virus can be considered the leading culprit!Taiwan Life has made good use of insurance and the power of the Group to continue phase-by-phase efforts at preventing and curing liver disease in Taiwan.
FRAMEWORK AND STRATEGY
- Phase I –Donating Screenings: Screening is expensive, and medical resources are unevenly allocated. Therefore, rural liver disease mortality is higher. The donation of Taiwan Life to the Liver Disease Prevention & Treatment Research Foundation covers screening services. 26,425 rural residents have received free hepatitis screenings.
- Phase II – Volunteering to Increase Accuracy: Few rural elderly people are barely literate. They can’t complete forms, which makes follow-up difficult and affects treatment. Taiwan Life continued donations in 2015 and called corporate volunteers to give assistance in completing forms and confirming information. This reduced error rates, and the event ran more smoothly, which greatly increased people’s willingness to undergo screenings.
- Phase III – World’s First Liver Disease Policy: Taiwan Life has long participated in hepatitis screenings and noticed that medical burdens reduce patients’ willingness to treat their disease. Taiwan Life designed an industry-first hepatitis B policy, “Taiwan Life Substandard Liver Whole Life,” which was approved by the competent authority on December 27, 2017. The policy enables hepatitis B carriers to control their conditions through 10 complete benefits. This safety net for disease protection is one way that Taiwan Life fulfils its corporate social responsibility.
ACHIEVEMENT AND IMPACT
Taiwan Life had donated a total of NTD 43 million from 2012 to 2017, and 200 corporate volunteers were engaged in the outreach hepatitis screening. Taiwan Life worked with four city and county governments and 400 local medical personnel in 10 townships to serve more than 48,000 residents in rural areas.In addition, Taiwan Life specifically developed the world’s first hepatitis B insurance policy, “Substandard Liver Whole Life,” for people with pre-existing conditions. The goal is to provide patients with hepatitis B with one-time and multiple-time benefits for disease management, care and major critical care expenses, to cover high medical expenses and care costs, and to effectively reduce the families’ burdens.
FUTURE DIRECTION
In recent years, under the influence of westernized diets and excess nutrition, the prevalence of fatty liver in Taiwan has gotten to about 30%, and the obesity rate has increased year by year. If combined with hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia, or hypertension, the total mortality of fatty liver patients is 1.29 times the average. After 10 or 20 years, steatohepatitis will replace viral hepatitis (hepatitis B and hepatitis C) as a new “killer”. Taiwan Life will not only continue to promote blood testing, but also encourage all three generations of families to walk together and community physical fitness. This will build exercise habits and turn back steatohepatitis through preventive medicine, so that people in Taiwan can stay away from the threat of liver disease.
Taiwan Life Insurance Co., Ltd. established Taiwan’s first insurance company which provide individual, annuity and group insurance products including life, AD&D, health insurance. Taiwan Life became a 100% owned subsidiary of CTBC Financial Holding in October 2015. Taiwan Life was ranked as 49th worldwide in 2018, with brand value of USD 2.1 billion.
