ABL Life Insurance launches dementia care service
ABL Life Insurance's headquarters in Seoul / Korea Times file
By Yoon Ja-young
ABL Life Insurance is offering special care services for subscribers to its dementia insurance policy.
According to the life insurer, customers subscribing to the “ABL Dementia Care Insurance” are eligible for healthcare consulting services to check their susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease.
Customers are also provided with information on the best doctors as well as appointments, special offers for medical checkups, and other health related information. They are provided tools for self-diagnosis of dementia and information on nursing facilities.
If they are diagnosed with dementia, the patients and their family members are offered help that suits each stage of the illness. If the patient is diagnosed with early stage dementia, they can request the insurer to dispatch an expert who will accompany them to a major hospital and can also receive regular phone calls from the insurer for support. The family members of the patient will also receive psychological counseling.
In case the patients are diagnosed with middle-stage dementia, patient are offered escort services between hospitals as well as location-tracking help in case they get lost. If their condition develops into severe dementia, they can also receive assistance in household chores as well as support to stay at nursing facilities.
“There is no efficient treatment for dementia and the focus is on prevention and delaying its progress as much as possible. The number of dementia patients, meanwhile, is displaying explosive growth, with one out of every 10 people 65 years or older is estimated to have dementia as of 2020,” said Eun Jae-kyung, head of product and marketing at ABL Life Insurance, explaining why the insurer launched dementia care services for subscribers.
“We plan to offer genuine services for customers, going beyond the payment of insurance money and expanding the scope to caring for their health and offering practical help to patients as well as their family members,” he added.