Insurance as a tool to reduce financial risks associated with postvaccinal complications

Population’s participation in vaccination for immunization against infectious diseases entails not only the risks of harm to health, but also financial risks. Unfavorable financial consequences of immunization can arise due to refusals from vaccinations and the development of postvaccinal complications. The problem of the discrepancy between the volume of state social support provided to citizens and the material consequences of vaccination actualizes the role of insurance in reducing the corresponding financial risks. The authors found that insurance companies on the Russian market offer financial coverage that is larger than that provided for by the state guarantees of social security for the vaccinated. However, the offers on the market have a number of serious limitations that impede the ability of interested parties to have the content of insurance coverage that would meet their expectations. At present, in insurance practice, formulations such as “serious complications”, “postvaccinal reactions and complications”, “complications, side effects, and other health disorders as a result of vaccination”, “complications arising after vaccination”, “conditions that have emerged since the moment of vaccination” are used in the formation of relevant programs, which significantly complicates the understanding of insurance conditions by the insurance services’ recipient and makes it difficult to compare the content of different programs in order to form optimal consumer preferences. Each insurance company fills the programs’ content with its own meaning so that quite often the amount of insurance coverage does not correlate with the list of side effects that occur after immunization accepted in medicine. Violation of industry standards in terms of the volume of disclosed information is allowed, which casts doubt on the quality of the insurance services provided. The authors propose to unify the approach to determining the basic categories for this type of insurance in order to remove the existing multivariance allowed by insurers in the development and further commercialization of insurance programs. Contribution of the authors: the authors contributed equally to this article. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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