Cigna Inc. has expanded its health care services to include providing insurance coverage in Singapore. The company already offers coverage in 28 countries.
The company, which is based in Philadelphia, has been granted a license so that it can open up operations in Singapore. The license allows it to sell insurance and the company is planning on marketing health and dental plans to as many as 7,000 multinational companies that already have operations in Singapore. This information is according to Andrew Kielty, president of Cigna International’s expatriate benefits unit.
According to the Ministry of Manpower in Singapore, there are as many as 110,000 expatriates that are now working in Singapore. This is a boon for Cigna, which considers Singapore as its missing link for its “powerful triangle of decision-making” in Asia. The triangle is made up of Hong Kong and Shanghai, said Kielty during a telephone interview. The company’s adjusted earnings in 2010 comprised 19 percent earnings from international business.
“This places us in a unique position among insurers, and the job of expansion in Asia is far from done,” Kielty says. “We have a list of other places worthy of exploration.”
Cigna holds the lead for American-based insurance companies when it comes to developing international markets. The only company that has accomplished more is Aetna Inc., which has expanded to China. Dave Shove, a New York-based analyst at the Bank of Montreal, says that both insurers have decided that “the U.S. health-benefits market is pretty mature and doesn’t present the opportunities it used to. Cigna has a big head start internationally, there’s no doubt.”
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