Shoreditch Town Hall has 50 designers displaying and selling while Broadway Market at the bottom of London Fields will be a temporary

Shoreditch Town Hall has 50 designers displaying and selling, while Broadway Market at the bottom of London Fields, will be a temporary home for more than 20 artists. The event is now in its fourth year and participants range from established names, such as fashion designer Abe Hamilton and sculptor Tom Hill, to newcomers such as Helena Ivins who will be selling giftboxes from her living room at 69 Nile Street. But in the meantime, the growth in the number of companies in this sector acts as a weak brake on rising prices.. Long trumpeted as the home of the London art scene, Hackney is throwing open the studio doors for the next two weekends with more than 250 of the borough’s artists available for public inspection. The recently floated Halifax is also known to be on the lookout to make acquisitions in the sector. PPP Healthcare is expected to be acquired by GE Capital as part of the US giant’s assault on the UK market. The result should be higher volumes in fewer hospitals and, as a result, lower prices and premiums.Longer term, the number of PMI insurers will reduce.

New entrants, including general insurers and banks, have made the market more competitive. William Laing says most of the new arrivals see PMI as either a way of filling a gap in their current product portfolio or have deep-enough pockets to see them through to predicted better times ahead.In reply, the providents have pioneered strategies aimed at restraining costs and rationalising the number of players in the sector.The two largest insurers, Bupa and PPP Healthcare, have reduced consumer choice by adopting “preferred providers” that limit subscribers to a network of about 150-170 hospitals. “It will become less and less affordable.”The inevitable result has been to further deter potential customers Yet perversely, the supply of PMI continues to expand. These increases have not only been way above the rate of inflation, but above the increase in NHS spending, and significantly above even the rise in average earnings, according to last year’s report from the Office of Fair Trading.”Any product whose price goes up faster than average earnings over a long period plainly faces problems,” John Bridgeman, the OFT’s director- general then recorded. The result has been serious oversupply of private medical provision. Too many private hospitals, most with occupancies below 50 per cent, are chasing too few patients.In addition, escalating costs associated with improved surgical techniques and superior drugs have driven the total value of claims ever higher, forcing private medical insurers into sharply rising premiums.

Even sweeteners from the last Conservative government in the shape of tax breaks for the elderly did little to improve its popularity.With the removal of tax allowances for PMI for the over-60s by the new Government, up to 100,000 people are estimated to have cancelled their policies, leaving insurers casting around for new buyers.”Much of the current PMI marketing strategy is centred on poaching each others’ clients,” says William Laing of independent healthcare analysts Laing & Buisson. For the last 17 years, the annual growth rate in those choosing to insure their healthcare outside the NHS has barely averaged 3 per cent per annum – almost insignificant in underwriting terms. Since 1990, the number of people covered by PMI has been stuck at around 11 per cent of the population. This unique structure insulates them from shareholder pressure. They can take a long-term view at a time when the once booming market for PMI has been experiencing a protracted slowdown.Despite lengthening queues for NHS treatment, our readiness to sign up with private health providers remains at remarkably low levels. Fees for doctors and hospital treatment came out of the members’ subscriptions.