The National Health Insurance Corp. said Monday it posted a 1.3 trillion won ($1.1 billion) loss last year, as the growth in expenditure outpaced that of premium income.
The shortfall marked a 406-fold increase from 3.2 billion won the previous year.
It recorded 33.6 trillion won in total premium income, up 7.6 percent or 2.3 trillion won from a year earlier, while its annual expenditures jumped 11.7 percent or 3.5 trillion won to 34.9 trillion won.
It froze the increase of premiums in 2009 following the global financial crisis before raising premiums by 4.9 percent in 2010.
“We expect to record about 500 billion won in losses this year. Therefore we are going to adopt retrenchment policies,” said an official from the insurance agency.
The rise in expenditures reflects increases in insurance coverage of diseases and policyholders’ visits to hospitals, it said.
