United Healthcare Group
MG 660 Strategic Marketing
United Healthcare Group
Overview
UnitedHealthcare is a unit of the United Healthcare Group that provides various health benefit programs and services. The health benefits programs help to meet the needs of the customers effectively through ensuring access to quality health care plans and offerings. United Healthcare Group seeks to a launch a new health insurance product for children. Most insurers do not offer products for children and thus, the launch of a new health insurance plan for children will help in growing health insurance coverage in the market (Freedman, Lin & Simon, 2015). The design of health insurance plan for children will be targeted for urban areas such as New York. The insurance plan for New York region will help in growing the market coverage.
Situational Analysis
The product to be offered is a new health insurance plan that will provide universal coverage for children is a new product. The insurance cover will be effective and useful in improving access to quality health care services (Sommers, Gunja, Finegold, & Musco, 2015).
In terms of competitive analysis, United Health Insurance plan faces stiff competition from close rivals including CareDx Inc, Foundation Medicine Inc, and Humana Inc. To remain competitive, United Health insurance plan will need to be cheaper and accessible to all children (Cawley, Moriya, & Simon, 2015). Making the coverage of children more universal and ease would make the insurance product more competitive.
Market
The health insurance market is mainly referred to as health exchanges. In the market, there are various organizations offering health insurance. Private non-ACA health care exchanges are present in most states enrolling more than 3 million persons. The health insurance market is responsible for providing quality insurance policies for the employees. However, the market for children insurance is not highly dominated United Healthcare Group will be able to benefit from a significant market share if they offer affordable prices for their health insurance policies.
Competitive Analysis
United Healthcare Group faces stiff competition from three rivals in their efforts to offer quality health insurance programs including Express Scripts, WellPoint, and Aetna. In 2018, UnitedHealthcare Group reported an average revenue growth of 5.26% higher than its competitors. The net margin of the company in 2018 was 5.3%, which is lower than the competitors. It shows that profitability of the health care insurance firm is not strong. The offering the children insurance program will be able to inspire additional revenue growth and increased profitability potential (Sommers, et al., 2015). The company operates in very competitive sector with diverse service providers competing to offer the same products and services including insurance firms and HMOs among others. New entrants into the sector including Catamaran corporation also places more pressure on the ability of the company to offer quality services.
Market Research
In conducting market research survey, the research will review the available health insurance products and services in the market and the core business strategies of the competing firms in the sectors. The survey indicates that it is important for United Healthcare Group to offer quality services, improve the care delivery processes, expanding the market share as well as enhancing the overall efficiency of administration operations (Freedman, et al., 2015). Aggressive marketing and product development strategy is a common business strategy for the firms in their efforts to ensure that they meet the changing needs of the consumers in the health insurance sector.
SWOT Analysis
The tool below shows the potential strengths and opportunities available to the health insurance firm as it offers the new product.
Strengths
1. A strong leader in health care plan market
2. It has huge market capitalization
3. Strong focus customers
4. It has innovative and diverse range of healthcare offerings. Weaknesses
1. It does not have a specific competitive edge.
2. Health care plans depends on government regulations and interventions.
Opportunities
1. Children not enrolled in the healthcare programs
2. Introduction of new products to target population of clients
3. Introduction of new plans for particular health problems
Threats
1. The changes in government guidelines could impact the operations
2. The increased level of competition
References
Cawley, J., Moriya, A. S., & Simon, K. (2015). The impact of the macroeconomy on health insurance coverage: Evidence from the great recession. Health Economics, 24(2), 206-223.
Freedman, S., Lin, H., & Simon, K. (2015). Public health insurance expansions and hospital technology adoption. Journal of Public Economics, 121, 117-131.
Sommers, B. D., Gunja, M. Z., Finegold, K., & Musco, T. (2015). Changes in self-reported insurance coverage, access to care, and health under the Affordable Care Act. Jama, 314(4), 366-374.
