Government-owned health insurer Medibank Private’s thoughts on branching out into general and life insurance products shouldn’t overly concern the industry, according to JP Morgan analyst Shane Fitzgerald.

He told Sunrise Exchange News while a “new competitor is a new competitor”, diversification by health insurers isn’t something the industry should be worried about.

Last week Medibank MD George Savvides told the ABC that after the company increased its profit 53% to $200 million last financial year, the company won’t rule out diversifying its product range.

He says Medibank Private, which controls almost 30% of Australia’s health insurance market, will be “piloting some new measures”, including getting into the life and general insurance markets.

“We’ve polled our members and our members say they would buy other products from the Medibank brand and 70% said they would be very interested in buying products that were offered from Medibank beyond private health insurance, so diversification is an active area of research and evaluation for us and we will be piloting some new measures,” Mr Savvides said.

Mr Fitzgerald says while rival health insurer MBF has also diversified its products, he wouldn’t describe the move by health insurers into general and life insurance as a growing trend.

He says health funds “typically have their hand in only one business, so it’s not surprising Medibank is trying to diversify its products”.