Idea 349 of 500. Cluster 17: Health, care and the parents of Sri Lankans abroad
Health-insurance products for parents at home, bought by children abroad
The mechanism, from the book
Sri Lankans abroad have parents at home whom they cannot look after from Melbourne. They will pay, and the money stays.
Every idea in cluster 17 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Call the local offices of two insurers and ask, as a customer, what cover exists for a parent in their seventies and what it excludes; write down the prices and the gaps. Then ask 15 people abroad what they spent the last time a parent went into hospital, and whether they would pay a fixed yearly premium instead of emergency transfers. Their answers become the brief you take to an insurer as a sales partner.
- Who pays first
- A child abroad who has already paid one large hospital bill by emergency transfer and would rather pay a known premium every year.
- What leaves today
- Money from Sri Lankans abroad now arrives in panicked lump sums; an insurance product turns it into steady premiums held and invested at home.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. EightWhat It Costs to Go First
Remittances and what it costs the first one to go - Ch. SixteenThe Bridge
The institutions already in existence that could carry value back
More from cluster 17
- 341Home-care agencies with trained, vetted carers, booked and paid from abroad
- 342Assisted-living homes for the parents of Sri Lankans abroad, with the standard published and inspected
- 343A daily check-in service: a nurse's visit, a photograph, a message to the child abroad
- 344Medical escort services: a nurse takes the parent to the appointment and reports back
- 345Pharmacy delivery with the prescription managed and the refills tracked
- 346Dementia day-care centres, which hardly exist yet and are needed everywhere
Idea 349 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.