According to a McKinsey & Co study, China's healthcare market in 2010 was valued at $293 billion, ranking it fifth worldwide. In sharp contrast, the commercial health insurance premium in 2011 amounted to just $11 billion, accounting for less than 4 percent.

China's health insurance premiums claimed a mere 7.1 percent of overall life insurance premiums, McKinsey data showed. In developed economies, the figure usually amounts to 30 percent, Zhou noted.

International medical insurance is "hugely lacking" in the Chinese mainland, where local general medical policies do not cover treatment outside the mainland, making them unappealing to both Chinese customers who travel overseas and expatriates stationed in the mainland.

The majority of the market is still competing with products covering major diseases and those that are subsidized by hospitals, Zhou said, whereas high-end health insurance is genuinely a network-type medical product offering seamless services.

Service-centered

John Williams, managing director of International SOS's China operations, a global medical and security service company, is starting to feel the pinch from top-end Chinese hospitals that are aiming to grab a share in the embryonic high-end medical care market.

International SOS is a membership organization that primarily works with companies to provide medical services to organizations and their employees, but it also collaborates with credit card companies and insurance firms to enable their clients to get access to international-standard medical facilities.

It opened an office in Beijing in 1989 and currently runs four clinics in Beijing, Tianjin and Nanjing. But Williams admitted the whole medical situation in China has changed very quickly over the past 10 years, especially in East China's coastal areas, saying there is a much more competitive business environment.

"The health bureau is encouraging the development of more community facilities because the hospitals are very busy with the volume of patients. Now many smaller clinics are run and operated by the Chinese," he said.

There are also many more options available than a decade ago. An increasing number of high-end facilities are embedded in Chinese local hospitals, such as the VIP unit in China's triple-A hospitals that have English-speaking doctors trained overseas, Williams said.

David Hayes, sales director of insurance brokerage Pacific Prime Insurance Brokers Ltd, is well positioned to echo such observations. His firm deals with individual insurance cases and he has noticed more patients are inclined to visit Chinese-run hospitals.

"Foreigners just want to speak English especially when they are sick. That's where the foreign facilities stand out. But the quality of Chinese facilities has significantly improved, notably those that run sections for foreigners," he said.

From time to time, Hayes said, foreign-owned facilities transfer a patient to a well-known local hospital if they are in a critical condition because he or she may get a better diagnosis and treatment.

For example, International SOS partners with around 600 hospitals nationwide on contract. The purpose, Williams said, is to send doctors to those hospitals and get to know better their standards and facilities should their members need access to the facilities, in the event of an emergency.

"Foreign facilities, such as Parkway and United Family, are sometimes incredibly expensive. For clients to feel safe, comfortable and with no language barrier, a good Chinese hospital is equal to, if not better than, a foreign one. This has happened over the past four years," Hayes said.