Group health policies fell 32% while insurance grew in dollars

Between 2021 and 2023, the Venezuelan insurance market grew in dollars every year. Over those same years, group health policies fell 32.2%.

They went from 117,282 to 79,527. Individual policies, by contrast, rose 14.6%.

The employer buys the group policy, and it covers many people. The individual policy covers one. The channel that carried the volume is shrinking. The one that grows is the expensive one.

Where it comes from

It comes from C4Accel’s own study on insurance demand in Venezuela. It looks at who buys, who pays and who cannot pay. Its cut-off date is August 2026.

The policy count comes from the regulator’s yearbook, in its table by line of business. That table exists from 2021 to 2023. The 2024 and 2025 yearbooks do not include it. That is why the window in people ends in 2023.

There is a figure the regulator does not publish: how many people a group policy covers. Without it, there is no series of insured people.

The study did not assume it. It turned the question around. How much did the average group policy have to grow for covered people not to fall?

It tested starting points of 5 to 25 lives per policy in 2021. In every case, the average policy had to grow between 35% and 45%. And in just two years, merely to avoid losing people.

No one has documented that growth, for or against. That is why the study’s verdict is conditional.

The money went up, beyond dispute. Covered people fell, unless the average group policy grew by around 40%.

Why the channel shift does not add up

The comfortable reading is a move from group to individual. The study rules it out.

That move explains at most 27% of the loss. To explain all of it, each group policy would have had to cover 1.33 lives. No group policy covers so few.

Two explanations remain. Either fewer employers are buying, or the same ones cover fewer employees. Both make covered people fall.

Which decision it changes

For a C-suite executive, the finding separates two things: money and people.

If you are evaluating an investment in the sector. Growth in dollars can hide fewer insured people. A multiple on growing premiums pays for a substitution, not for an expansion.

Before setting a price, ask for the portfolio split by channel. The aggregate figure hides the channel that is shrinking.

If you sell to the sector. The channel that grows is the expensive one, and it is sold one by one. The one that shrinks carried the volume.

A proposal designed for large group portfolios targets the segment that is getting smaller. One designed for individuals targets a customer who pays more, but is scarce.

If you are the employer who buys. Your group policy rose in price much more than the individual one. The study leaves two readings open.

Either small policies left the market and the large ones remain. Or the employer absorbed an increase the individual did not. Either way, your renewal is no longer routine.

What else is behind it

The full study looks at the other side of the insurance counter. This article touches only one of its findings. Behind it are, among other pieces:

• Why the real price exceeds the shop-window quotes.
• How much of a household’s income an individual health policy takes.
• The vehicle insurance the law requires, which covers a tiny fraction of the fleet.
• The document that would show whether mandatory insurance gained insured people or only rose in price.
• Which income layer can absorb the substitution, and how thin it is.

What serves you from all this depends on where you stand at the counter.