By Alex C
Healthcare International Limited, a leading health maintenance organisation, has announced a turnover of N2.69 billion for its operations in 2013. While this turnover shows a marginal increase of 3 percent from the previous year, the company’s Profit Before Tax stood at N158 million as against N155 million the previous year.
Olayinka Omilani, chairman of the company at its Annual General Meeting said that the business environment was challenging last year due to government tight monetary and fiscal policies.
According to Omilani, increase in turnover was due to an increase in awareness by the populace of the benefits of health insurance occasioned by an increase in the activities of the Health Maintenance Organisation (HMOs) and fresh initiatives from the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
Tosin Awosika, managing director, said the company was shifting its focus from the corporate sector to the informal sector, which has shown a lot of prospects with a shorter buying cycle.
“Since the global financial meltdown, and its attendant toll on companies in Nigeria, Healthcare International realised it was no longer expedient to direct activities at the corporate organisations only because they were going through their own financial challenges. This led to a paradigm shift to the informal sector that would see the Company increase its market share in the industry and ultimately impact on quality service delivery and profitability,” Awosika explained.
Healthcare International Limited is one of the 46 companies recently re-accredited as a HMO following the conduct of an assessment of all the 77 registered HMOs carried out by the NHIS evaluating their strength and potentials.
The occasion of the 11th annual general meeting also marked the 15th anniversary of the existence of the company as a pioneer health insurance company in Nigeria.