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Q&A with Ken Wong, CXA Hong Kong’s new CEO

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Singapore-headquartered health and wellness marketplace CXA Group (ConneXionsAsia) has appointed Ken Wong as CEO for Hong Kong, as its team continues to grow and they expand their footprint across Asia. Before joining CXA Wong worked with Aon as their global benefits consulting head for APAC. CXA also added the following key appointments, Gary Tok as chief commercial officer, Denise Lim as sales director and Manus Chan as a consultant.

"CXA is delighted to welcome the 4 stars from Aon with proven track records in helping corporations solve their employee benefits and healthcare issues. To date, 75 employees joined CXA from Mercer Marsh Benefits, Aon Hewitt, Willis Towers Watson and JLT, " said Rosaline Chow Koo, founder and CEO of CXA Group.

Human Resources spoke to Wong about his experience, insights and predictions for 2018.

1. What do you anticipate being some of the challenges in the employee healthcare market in Hong Kong?

In my opinion, the corporate (employee) healthcare market has been stagnating for years; from the way emerging employee health risks are managed (or lack thereof), to insurance plan designs and pricing, to the way the programs are administered and how employees interact with it (e.g. traditional paper-based medical claims processes).  For a number of leading HK insurers, their employee benefits infrastructure has lagged behind their retail health insurance platform. In the meantime, health program costs inflation has tracked 2-3x general inflation in the past decade and is becoming an increasing burden for companies in Hong Kong.

In recent years I have seen some shifts, in insurer investment, in adopting web and mobile-enabled technologies that streamline administration and improve employee experience, offering alternative (lower cost) treatment design options and adding health and wellbeing programs or technologies (apps) to the core insurance offering. However there is a lot more that is required; in particular, understanding tracking and influencing employee health behaviour before health program risks can truly be managed effectively.

2. What are your priorities for the Hong Kong market?

My priority is to work with our insurance and healthcare partners to understand our customer employees’ underlying health state and develop solutions that focus on disease prevention over treatment.  Our platform has employee choice functionality via flexible benefits and access to a suite of wellness vendor products and services. We will look to expand this in 2018.  In addition, we already have personalised employee health rating and education AI engine that is well tuned for Asia and we will be looking to enhance this by tailoring the engine specifically to Hong Kong.

3. What are your predictions for employee healthcare in 2018?

Corporate will continue to struggle with managing the cost of their healthcare plans.  Medical inflation is expected to be 7-9% in 2018, far in excess of general inflation. Insurers will continue to invest to upgrade their products and infrastructure which will benefit both companies and their employees.  The focus will increasingly turn to early detection and treatment of leading expensive chronic diseases. I anticipate forward-thinking companies in this space will play to their key strengths and look to partner with other leading healthcare and technology companies to bring integrated and effective solutions to corporate customers.

Photo/supplied

ALSO READ: The 11-idea checklist for small wins in employee wellness

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