title: A global overview of health insurance administrative costs: what are the reasons for variations found?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Administrative costs are an important spending category in total health insurance expenditure. Yet, they have rarely been a topic outside the US and there is no cross-country comparison available. This paper provides a global overview and analysis of administrative costs for social security schemes (SSS) and private health insurance schemes (PHI).
  
  
  METHODS
  The analysis is based on data of the World Health Organization (WHO) National Health Accounts (NHA) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) System of Health Accounts (SHA). These are the only worldwide databases on health expenditure data. Further data was retrieved from a literature search. Administrative costs are presented as a share of total health insurance costs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Data is available for 58 countries. In high-income OECD countries, the average SSS administrative costs are 4.2%. Average PHI administrative costs are about three times higher. The shares are much higher for low- and middle-income countries. However, considerable variations across and within countries over time are revealed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Seven explanatory factors are explored to explain the variations: health financing system aspects, administrative activities undertaken, insurance design aspects, context factors, reporting format, accounting methods, and management and administrative efficiency measures. More detailed reporting of administrative costs would enhance comparability and provide benchmarks. Improved administrative efficiency could free resources to expand coverage.
authors: Department of Health Systems Financing, World Health Organization, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland. mathaueri@who.int
authors: Inke
authors: I
authors: Mathauer
authors: Emmanuelle
authors: E
authors: Nicolle
mesh_terms: D000066:Accounting; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D006801:Humans; D007343:Insurance Carriers / Q000191:economics*; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000191:economics*