Tuesdata: The state of play in health insurance

BY Tim Burrowes

June 12, 2023 10:51

Tuesdata: The state of play in health insurance

Welcome to Tuesdata, our weekly analysis of the most compelling media and marketing data, only available to Unmade’s paying members.

Below, we uncover the top spending brands in the health insurance sector, as calculated by Nielsen Ad Intel. We’ll also take a look at the health insurance brands winning the greatest digital audience, as measured by Ipsos Iris. We reveal the most frequently broadcast advertising creative, as measured by Canda Intelligence. And there are details of Nielsen Consumer and Media View’s assessment of which health insurers have the greatest market share.

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The biggest health insurance spenders of the last year

Approximately 8.9 million Australians are currently covered by private health insurance. The key role of marketers in the space is to grow that number, or to persuade existing customers to switch loyalty.

In today’s analysis, we cover the following brands: AHM, Bupa, Defence Health, HBF, HCF, Medibank and NIB.

In the period of April 2022 to March 2023, health insurance category spend was $115m, data from Nielsen Ad Intel tells us. That’s $3 million more than the previous period of April 2021 to March 2022.

There’s been a 3% YoY increase in health insurance category ad spend | Source: Nielsen Consumer and Media View

1. Medibank Private

Topping the rankings for category ad spend in April 2022-March 2023 was Medibank Private.

Medibank continues to lead the way in health insurance ad spend

The cyberattack, which saw Medibank’s customer records leaked by hackers, came to light in October 2022, midway through the year being analysed.

The creative that Medibank aired most frequently was its ‘Only Human’ positioning, which was launched by New-Zealand based Colenso BBDO in July last year.

Monitoring service Canda Media Intelligence estimates that Medibank has spent $2.1m airing the 30-second ad.

2. Bupa Australia

In our last update on the brands spending the most on health insurance, Bupa came in at number three, and since then it’s moved up to second place.

Bupa’s biggest portion of TV ad spend went to its ‘Because Life Happens’ campaign

Bupa spent an estimated $1.6m airing a 15 second rendition of its ‘Because Life Happens’ campaign, devised by Thinkerbell.

3. HCF

HCF was bumped down to third place this year. Clemenger BBDO’s ‘We Put Our Money Where Our Members Are’ campaign was the piece of creative the brand aired most frequently.

An estimated $400,000 was spent on the 15-second ‘not-so-fancy’ giveaway TV ad.

4. HBF

Quokkas continue to capture the bulk of HBF’s ad spend

HBF moved up the ad spend rankings, landing in fourth place this time round with the quirky quokka mascots featured in a variety of campaigns.

HBF’s ‘six weeks free on new hospital and extras cover’ has been airing since September 24 2022, and an estimated $1.2m has been spent on it since.

5. AHM

Coming in fifth was AHM. According to Canda, it spend roughly $250,000 on its latest ‘You’re Good’ ad, the positioning of which was devised by The Monkeys. It’s so far racked up a spot count of 2,697 on television since it aired last March.

AHM crawled into the top five spender rankings

The 30-second version of the ad has also been making the rounds on the ad-supported tier of streaming service Binge the last couple months.

NIB was knocked out of the top five this time round, with AHM usurping its place in the rankings.

Who’s landing the most digital audience?

According to website and app usage data from Ipsos Iris covering this April, Medibank had a consistent lead as the health insurance brand garnering the highest digital audience on its site and app.

A total of 1.47m Australians visited the Medibank platform over April 2023. Bupa came in second at 1.12 million, while HCF scored approximately 782,000 visitors.

Medibank takes the lead in ad spend and number of people visiting | Source: Ipsos Iris Online Audience Measurement Service

Market share – Bupa leads

While Medibank is the health insurance site with the most people visiting throughout all of 2023, it’s not actually the provider that has the greatest percentage of Australian customers. According to Nielsen Consumer and Media View data, Bupa dominates with 21% of the market share, while Medibank Private follows in second place with 18%.

However, when it comes to the insurance providers that Australians without health cover are most likely to consider, Medibank Private comes in first place at 32%, followed by NIB at 27%.

Among the Australians that currently have private health insurance, one in two find online search to be the most useful media channel to select and purchase insurance, while 31% find company websites as most useful. This finding from Nielsen might help illustrate why Medibank, which invests the most on ad spend across platforms, consistently continues to rank as the most visited site in the category.