Health Insurer ZP Dovera Accused of Appropriating Citizens’ Money
The Healthcare Supervision Office (UDZS) says that by reducing its share capital, the private health insurer Zdravotna Poistovna Dovera appropriated citizens’ money that should have been used to pay to healthcare providers. UDZS head Richard Demovic said that that by transferring SKK 1.9 billion (EUR 63.07 million) from share capital to a private pocket means that in fact funds that were to be exclusively allocated for payment of healthcare and for the development of the health sector shrank by this amount. Mr. Demovic said that it is not the money that the shareholders would have brought in from the outside to the public healthcare insurance budget and if Zdravotna Poistovna Dovera says this otherwise, it does not tell the truth. Mr. Demovic added that the Slovak legislation strewed the path for private health insurance companies with flowers. “I dare say that it is not always in compliance with the citizens' interests.”
Martin Danko, the spokeswoman for the Penta group that owns the health insurer, however, argues that share capital is a sum of deposits by all shareholders. Shareholders of Zdravotna Poistovna Dovera decided in the past that the profit that the insurer earned will be used to support its share capital and not for payment of dividends or for purposes of other consumption. In 2008, the shareholders, however, decided to reduce the share capital in compliance with the same principle. “Thus, it is absolutely incorrect to mistake funds making up the share capital for public sources of a health insurer that it uses to finance provided health care, " argued Mr. Danko.
The insurer's decision to lower its share capital got a green light from UDZS. Mr. Demovic said he cannot rule out that the decision was not made in a standard way and because during its issuance internal rules were infringed the respective employee will no longer issue any other decision, as the authority already bid farewell to him. Mr. Demovic, however, admits that the respective employee had no other choice than to issue the decision. However, the UDZS head minded that he issued the decision "within three days" and other employees of the office were not informed of it. Mr. Demovic said he is considering filing a criminal complaint against an unknown offender. “I do not know to what extent it was a free decision and to what extent pressure was developed on the official who issued the decision, but this was non- standard," he said. It is believed that head of the UDZS section for health insurance supervision Branislav Juhas issued the approval of the share capital reduction for the health insurer.
Slovakia’s biggest private health insurance company, Zdravotna Poistovna Dovera, reduced its share capital by SKK 1.9 billion (EUR 63.07 million). Its share capital thus fell from SKK 2.4 billion (EUR 79.67 million) to less than SKK 481.2 million (EUR 15.97 million), according to company reports of the share capital reduction in the Commercial Bulletin. The insurer's director general Martin Simun explained that ZP Dovera made this decision after legislative developments failed to create room for development of individual health insurance and reduced health insurers’ chances to invest in their own development.
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