Indian health insurance industry is moving towards a very important and critical phase. It was a long-time cry of the insurance industry for not seeing any stand-alone health insurance players for the first few years. Initially, though no stand-alone player was present, the private insurance companies offered health insurance policies on the similar lines as the Mediclaim policies offered by the public sector insurance companies. Though Mediclaim is a product of public sector insurance companies, people have started using it as a generic name referring to health insurance policies. Currently, two stand-alone companies have opened up and most of the non-life companies have ventured into health insurance business. Currently, health insurance is the second fastest growing line of business after motor insurance in this sector. With a promising compound annual growth rate of 35%, health insurance has attracted life insurance companies also. A few life insurance companies have started to float health cover policies, which has made health insurance into a prominent business in India.
Once the health insurance industry was more dependent
on the group insurance business and group health insurance
was a loss-making portfolio, surviving mainly because
of cross-subsidization across fire and engineering
insurance. After de-tariffication it was really a
matter of concern whether health insurance could swim
across the sea in the absence of cross-subsidization
factors. Thankfully, the improved healthcare sector
scenario in terms of medical infrastructure for which
medical tourism is also one of the factors has increased
the confidence of urban people at least to believe
in the supply chain management capability of the hospitals.
(It must be noted that the hospital costs and related
problems are not discussed here, which is altogether
a different league. Here the reference is only made
about the increase in the ability of our healthcare
sector to handle complex cases). |
