Bupa

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Please improve this article if you can. (August 2007)
Bupa
Type Company limited by guarantee
Founded 1947
Headquarters London, UK
Key people Ray King, CEO
Industry Healthcare
Revenue £4,246 million (2006)
Employees 46,000 (2006)
Website www.bupa.com

Bupa is a healthcare organisation with bases on three continents and more than seven million customers in 192 countries.

Contents

[edit] Overview and history

Bupa began as The British United Provident Association in 1947. Its biggest and original business is health insurance in the UK for individuals, companies and other organisations. More than half of the UK's top companies are Bupa customers.[citation needed]

Bupa insures over 8.1 million people worldwide.[citation needed] The company has its head office in central London, with main contact centres in Salford Quays and Staines. Bupa also has offices in Brighton (Bupa International), Bristol (Bupa Health Assurance), Ashford, Surrey (Information Systems) and Leeds (Bupa Care Services). The company is known for its sponsorship of main events, such as the Great Manchester Run, Great North Run, held annually in Newcastle upon Tyne, and the Great South Run, held annually in Portsmouth. Bupa staff take calls for Comic Relief during the appeal.

[edit] A global health and care specialist

Bupa is an internationally established health insurance and care specialist with services that include:

Bupa has businesses in Asia, Australia, Saudi Arabia and Thailand. It also owns several healthcare companies overseas including Spain's largest healthcare company, Sanitas, and acquired IHI Danmark (Copenhagen, Denmark) and Amedex (Miami, USA) in September 2005. In November 2006 Bupa acquired Clinovia, the UK’s home healthcare specialist, in a move that gave BUPA new opportunities in the expanding out of hospital care market.

On 14th December 2006, Bupa announced it would leave the Irish market following a warning that the company would have to pay €161m over the next three years to support its main rival, Vhi Healthcare, who demanded that "risk equalisation" would be required to be subsidised from Bupa. Vhi Heathcare has more older members, which results in more claims, and that the health insurance market would need to help them, to keep providing the services. Risk equalisation between insurance funds is common practice in several European competitive insurance practice. Bupa Ireland operated from its corporate headquarters in Dublin, and its call centre in Fermoy, Co. Cork. On January 31st 2007, Bupa Ireland announced a takeover agreement with Quinn Group, resulting in Bupa Ireland transferring around 750,000 members and saving over 300 jobs. [1] The takeover was concluded on 17 April 2007 when the outfit was fully relaunched as Quinn Healthcare.

In June 2007 Bupa announced that it had agreed to sell its hospitals business, comprising 25 hospitals, to the European private equity firm, Cinven for £1.44 billion ($2.8 billion) (Euro 2.13 billion). The Bupa Board stressed that the sale would have no effect on holders of Bupa health insurance in the UK, who will have access to the same range of hospitals they currently have.[2]

In December 2007, Bupa announced the purchase of Health Dialog, a US provider of Care Management services.[3] BUPA had been a founding investor of Health Dialog since its inception, and with purchased the remaining shares of the company in order to help Health Dialog expand internationally.

BUPA logo (1984 - 2008)
BUPA logo (1984 - 2008)

On 1 January 2008, Bupa's logo for it's American business changed. The UK logo changed on 1 April 2008 after 27 years, and became known as Bupa rather than BUPA.

On 17 March, Bupa acquired the Cromwell Hospital in London. On 14 May, approval was given for the merger between Bupa's Australian arm and insurance group MBF, which also includes HBA and Mutual Community.[4]

On 15 May 2008, Bupa International and [International Medical Insurers] had their launch event to celebrate their collaboration. This makes International Medical Insurers(IMI) the sole distributor for BUPA plans in Singapore.

[edit] Corporate status

Bupa is a provident association meaning it has no shareholders and therefore doesn't pay a dividend. As such it reinvests its surpluses into improved health and care facilities such as medical equipment, the latest technology and buildings. [5]

[edit] Medical research

Bupa annually awards nearly £2.5 million in grants to the Bupa Foundation, an independent charitable foundation that supports projects to advance medical knowledge and improve treatments.[citation needed]

[edit] Leadership

Ray King, who was previously Bupa's Finance Director, took over from Val Gooding as Chief Executive on 19th May 2008.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.bupa.ie/news/press/pressreleases_310107.html
  2. ^ Bupa agrees hospitals sale - Bupa press release
  3. ^ Health Dialog sold in $775M deal - Boston Business Journal:
  4. ^ MBF-BUPA merger gets court go ahead - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
  5. ^ Bupa health care organisation - all you need to know about us

[edit] External links

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