Health insurance biz to touch Rs 35,000 crore by 2014-15

Rising middle-class incomes, inflationary pressure on healthcare costs and the popularity of state-sponsored healthcare schemes will help the health insurance business in India touch the Rs 35,000 crore mark by 2014-15, says the ‘India 2011 – Insurance Industry Report’ released by India Insure Risk Management and Brokerage Services.

The health insurance business has been growing at a steady pace over the past few years and accounted for 25 per cent of the overall business of the general insurance companies in 2010-11, against 23 per cent in 2009-10 and 20 per cent in 2008-09, retaining its second position after motor insurance. The sector earned a net premium of Rs 8,528 crore in 2010-11, against Rs 6,241 crore in the previous financial year.

According to the report, health insurance has been the fastest growing market segment registering a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32 per cent for the past six years. The growth drivers include an ageing population, increasing healthcare costs, improving per capita income and awareness and increasing employer-sponsored health insurance cover.

“Increased coverage under government schemes like Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), innovative products to reach the rural sector, reduction in premiums and switching from hospitalization cover to health managed programmes under insurance, will all result in the health insurance sector growing to about Rs 35,000 crore by the year 2014-15,” the report says.

According to the report, the healthcare spend in the country is expected to double and touch Rs 2,25,000 crore by 2014 and with just 3 per cent health insurance penetration in the country, there is a huge market for health insurance in India.

The attitude of the Indian middle class towards the need for health insurance is also changing with factors like increase in lifestyle diseases, apart from rise in healthcare costs.

The report also questions why the industry focused only on hospitalization, which was only 20-25 per cent of an individual’s healthcare, spend, ignoring 75 per cent of the market. The insurance industry could also do well to develop new and innovative products in segments, such as micro-insurance health products and ‘health plus life’ products that provide life cover, along with health insurance to subscribers.

Save Non life insurance Govt companies-Govt to disinvest

There is news that Indian government is in consultation to sell stakes in major Non life insurance companies. These are New India Assurance, National Insurance, oriental and United India. Is this move done to get more cash for government or it wants to modernize these players.

In Non life segment- the two major categories come are -
1. Health Insurance
2. Motor Insurance

With these companies who have large market share - it will certainly change the industry.
For customers - what this can do.

These companies are considered honest in terms of claims but to get claim in these companies is a very tedious work.

With selling the stake- may be new teams will get appointed who will look after the concerns in delay of claims etc.

The other motive behind this govt move can be to insure these companies do not get into large losses and with public participation in capital, they make find there way to profitability.
To comply with norms all these companies will have to have independent directors which will help in restructing.

Oriental Bank widens focus to include Mediclaim policy

Oriental Bank of Commerce today entered into a memorandum of Understanding with Oriental Insurance Co Ltd for selling Mediclaim policies to the bank's customers through its pan-India network.

Oriental Bank Mediclaim policy is cash-less family floater covering the members of the beneficiary's family. The policies are available for Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. For a policy of Rs 5 lakh, the premium is as low as Rs 6,705 a year.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by Mr. R.M. Sharma, General Manager, Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC), and Mr. A.K.Saxena, General Manager, Oriental Insurance Co, in the presence of Mr. Nagesh Pydah, Chairman and Managing Director of the bank, and Mr. R.K. Kaul, Chairman and Managing Director of the insurance firm.

Mr. Kaul noted that this policy has some features that are unique for OBC's customers. “This product will be available for all OBC customers up to the age of 79 years. Also, no medical check up will be required.”

So far, Oriental Bank was not looking at general insurance products as a source of “revenue” for the bank. However, there is now a change in its revenue model and OBC has decided to also focus attention on general insurance products for increasing its fee-based income.

“This product was a long-felt need of our customers. Oriental Bank Mediclaim policy will fill the gap in our bouquet of products and services. This should help us in our fee-based income and also in bolstering CASA. This will be a great opportunity for us to build our Current Account Savings Account (CASA) deposits,” Mr. Pydah said.

All Metro and urban branches of the bank have been mandated to sell minimum 250 policies in the next six months, he said. The six-month target has been pegged at 175 policies for semi-urban branches and 75 policies for rural branches.

Govt med insurance only for general ward patients

Only patients admitted in a general ward will be eligible for the government sponsored cashless health insurance for inpatient treatment for primary and secondary illnesses in government and private hospitals in Goa. If a patient is admitted in the ICU, the "Swarnajayanti Aarogya Bima Yojana" card will not serve to pay for treatment.

The card has a ceiling of Rs60, 000. Admitting this, health minister Vishwajit Rane said, "The scheme is for primary and secondary illnesses and one doesn't need ICU admission for these illnesses." Doctors, however, differ with the health minister's view. "Treatments under the scheme include major surgeries such as nephrectomy (surgery to remove part or entire kidney), abdomino perineal resection (removal of anus, rectum, or colon), commando operation (surgery for first degree malignancy of the tongue) and other such treatments, in which patients in a majority of cases need to be admitted in the ICU. Also what about patients who come to the hospital for primary and secondary care but later develop complications and need to be shifted to the ICU?" Association of Private Nursing Homes spokesperson Dr Govind Kamat said. Dr Mithun Mahatme of Mahatme Nursing Home, Bicholim said, "The intent may be good but implementation is not practical. The insurance is for admission in a general ward.

What happens if an emergency patient comes and the general ward beds are full? Also, the rates quoted are low due to which we would be forced to cut corners which won't be in the patients' interest." Though private hospitals have shown discontent with the rates, ICICI Lombard, that will run the scheme, claims that Manipal, R G stone, Wockhardt and SMRC-Vivus hospitals (all corporate hospitals) have agreed to the terms and the company is in final talks with a several other hospitals as well.

Pvt hospitals roped in

FISG-ICICI Lombard GIC Vice-president Birendra Mohanty said, "The implementation of the scheme has already begun and we have roped in more than 10 private hospitals in the network, along with three public hospitals. We are in negotiations with other private hospitals." Kamat, however, said, "The hospitals named by the insurance company are not members of our association. As far as we know, except for one member, none of the others have entered into an agreement with the insurance company. We have also called a meeting of all the members on Sunday to decide the future course of action." Goa has about 110 private nursing homes.

Rane added, "We want the association of private nursing homes on board. They do have some apprehensions but that will be resolved by ICICI." ICICI Lombard's "scope of services" clause states that the package will include "bed charges (general ward), nursing and boarding charges, surgeons, anesthetists, medical practitioner, consultants fees, anesthesia, blood, oxygen, OT charges, cost of surgical appliances, medicines and drugs, cost of prosthetic devices, implants, X-ray and diagnostic tests, food for patient etc". It also includes expenses incurred for diagnostic tests and medicines one day before admission and up to five days after discharge from the hospital.

Transportation expense from the patient's residence to the hospital is also covered and would be reimbursed in cash by the hospital to the patient on providing proof of expenditure. The maximum amount payable to the patient for transportation would be `100.

Health cover doesn’t fit the ayurveda bill

Are you suffering from diabetes, arthritis or any other chronic disease and opting for ancient forms of medicine? The good news is insurance cover is available for such patients. After some insurance companies began recognizing ayurvedic treatment, many are going ahead with cashless transactions or 80% reimbursements for chronic diseases. Not just that, Karnataka has recognized 15 ayurvedic hospitals for its employees who can undergo treatment and even claim reimbursement.

The Ayush department is in the process of drafting specifications of ayurvedic treatments that can be reimbursed like any other mainstream one. "This can help employees get treated anywhere they like," said Ayush director G N Srikantaiah.

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It is also evolving standards for alternative medicine hospitals so that they can be covered by private insurance companies.

But ayurvedic hospitals feel private insurance companies are still restrictive in terms of coverage. At Soukya holistic health centre in Whitefield, 25 cases of 80% coverage have been made after some insurance companies began covering alternative medicine. "It was a little tough as the parameters of our treatment do not match that of mainstream medicine and diseases. Neither do we have standard pricing. But nowadays, people are coming to us for long-term chronic diseases that could cost up to Rs 1.5 lakh. These are comparable to surgeries in English medicine," said Dr Isaac Mathai, director of Soukya.

Soukya is in the process of getting a certificate from the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), so that the process of insurance coverage becomes smoother. At Soukya, the diseases mostly covered by insurance are chronic longterm conditions like arthritis , spondilytis, neurological diseases and even cancer. "Anything chronic should be covered by health insurance providers ,'' added Dr Mathai.

Rs.150-cr for new insurance scheme

A sum of Rs.150 crore has been allotted initially against newly-formulated Chief Minister's Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme, Finance Minister O. Panneerselvam announced in the Assembly on Thursday.

The old insurance scheme of the DMK regime was terminated, but to benefit patients in the bridge period between suspending the old scheme and launching the new one, a sum of Rs.100 crore was separately allocated, Finance Secretary K. Shanmugam said in his post budget briefing.

The government will focus on improvement of primary health care facilities in urban areas. The 60 centres already sanctioned under the National Rural Health Mission, will be shifted under the administrative and technical control of the Directorate of Public Health. Further, the Finance Minister announced that Urban Primary Health Care centres will be set up in 75 more small urban towns. A super-speciality centre, at a cost of Rs.100 crore, would be set up in Annal Gandhi Government Hospital, Tiruchi.

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Additionally, infrastructure and equipment upgradation has been planned for district hospitals and poison treatment centres at a cost of Rs.55 crore, under the Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project. Also, under public-private partnership agreements, diagnostic facilities at the major hospitals will be improved, and state-of-the-art computer aided laboratories established in all districts in a phased manner. A ‘Hospital on Wheels' scheme will be launched to provide door-to-door health care services far-flung areas to begin with. Sanitary napkins will be provided free of cost to rural girls through the ICDS network and village health nurses. A sum of Rs.46 crore has been provided for this.

Emergency transportation provided through the 108 ambulance service will further be extended to offering inter-facility transfer for all emergencies. Additionally, special vehicles will be put into service in tribal and hilly areas, and one vehicle will be provided per district for transporting new born babies.

IndiaFirst Life forays into health insurance

IndiaFirst Life Insurance on Wednesday forayed into the health insurance segment by launching a new product and said it expects to garner about 10 per cent of its total premium within next three years.

The company, a joint venture between public sector lenders Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank along with UK-based investment firm Legal & General, also said it aims to sell at least 1 lakh health insurance policies within that period.

"As a line of business, health offers the best potential in the insurance sector. We have today launched out first plan -- IndiaFirst Money Back Health Insurance Plan -- and in the coming days, we will come out with more offers," IndiaFirst Life Insurance Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer P Nandagopal said.

The Money Back Plan would offer protection to customers for up to 10 years. The minimum premium payout of the customer would be Rs 10,000.

The health insurance cover would be a minimum for Rs 1.5 lakh and maximum of Rs 10 lakh.

"Health insurance, along would pension and micro- insurance, would be our three focus areas and we expect 10 per cent of our total business to come from health insurance within three years," Nandagopal said.

We also aim to sell at least one lakh health insurance policies in next three years, it added. The plan would offer health cover as well as savings option to the customer.

A part of the premium, depending on the age and health of the customer, would be credited into the buyer's policy account and this money would be invested in various funds to get optimum returns.

"The plan offers a comprehensive health cover for the entire family along with the investment flexibility to grow wealth by investing in different funds under a single plan," Nandagopal said.

"Our aim is to grow by 40 per cent year-on-year and be among the top six players within three years in the life insurance segment," he said.

IndiaFirst Life Insurance, which started operations in March 2010, currently has total premium of over Rs 1,000 crore.

A large population is without health insurance, as the industry has reached only 4.22 per cent of Indians. Around 14 crore people in urban areas remain untouched by any form of health insurance.

Insurers can’t walk out of convention mid-term: IRDA

In a move that will benefit health insurance customers, IRDA has said that companies can not cancel insurance policies in the medium term. The move, sources say, is in response to complaints from policyholders of health insurance contracts that were terminated before the end of a year due to higher claims.

In a circular to all companies on this week, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority said not political, either fresh or renewal can be sold with a clause contrary to the rules of cancellation. The rules allow cancellation if there is fraud, misrepresentation or nondisclosure of a material fact of the insured.

However, the industry says it would be unusual not to have a cancellation clause. "Historically and internationally has been the practice of having a facility of cancellation available to both the insurer and the insured after giving sufficient notice to use other arrangements," says G Srinivasan, President, General Insurance Public Sector and head of U.S. Insurance Company in India. He said the termination clause was important in cases where the cover was based on reinsurance support from reinsurers also include a similar clause.

Pavanjit Singh Dhingra care insurance brokers said the cancellation of insurance policies due to adverse claims violated the trust policyholders. In the past there have been cases in which the offer to increase its topline, insurance companies, have acquired a group of practices is very low. However, after burning their fingers high claims have not used the escape clause.

"It is incumbent on insurers to do their homework and purchase appropriate and bear the risk of the contract. What is the purpose of insurance if the insurer can move away from risk, at its discretion? Sometimes insurance companies have been ruthless in underwriting policies and cancellation or attempted to renegotiate the terms of the insurance period which is totally unfair, and we welcome this action to protect policyholders, "said Dhingra.

Health policies by life insurance companies will not be portable

Your plan to switch your existing health insurance policy from a non-life insurer to a life insurance company may not be possible, at least for now. The insurance regulator is likely to confine the portability of health insurance policies to non-life insurance companies.

“To start with, only mediclaim policies offered by general insurance companies will be portable. Health insurance policies offered by life insurance companies, which are much more complex in nature, will not come under it,” said a senior official of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda).

One of the primary reasons for not extending the facility is that the term of the policies offered by general insurance companies is one year. However, for life insurance companies, it is long-term, raging between three and 15 years. Portability allows a policyholder to shift the policy offered by one insurer to the other, while keeping the terms and conditions of the cover unchanged.

“Most health plans offered by life insures are indemnity policies or benefit policies, which are associated with lump sum benefits at the end of the term, subject to certain pre-specified conditions. Hence, it is very difficult to port credits, since these policies require completely different underwriting techniques,” said a life insurance company official.

“More than 90 per cent of the health insurance business is confined to the general insurance industry. Policies offered by general insurers are fixed-benefit plans and are renewed annually. This is different from plans offered by the life insurance companies. So, portability between health products offered by life and non-life insurance companies is not feasible,” said a senior official at a state-owned general insurance company.

In short, for mediclaim policies, there are no survival benefits or life covers. So, general insurance companies would not be able to service these kinds of health insurance plans, he the official said.

Another aspect is the pricing of the policies. “One of the important issues is how to price the benefits. Different companies offer different benefits to add exclusivity to their products. For instance, in the case of portability, one has to forgo some benefits. Thus, the policyholder might claim some discount, which the insurer might not allow,” said an actuary in a life insurance company. Top Engineering Colleges

Last week, the insurance regulator decided to postpone the execution of portability of health insurance policies by three months to October 1, as industry officials sought more clarifications from the regulator.

In a bid to facilitate data sharing among insurance companies, Irda had embarked upon providing a web-based facility for insurers to feed in all relevant details on health insurance policies issued by them. This data would be accessible by the company to which a policyholder wishes to port his policy. “Such a system would enable the new insurer to obtain efficiently data on history of health insurance of the policyholder wishing to port. It is necessary to enable the smooth running of the system,” Irda had said.

Domestic workers now covered under health insurance scheme

There is good news for 47.50 lakh domestic workers in the country: they will now be entitled to health insurance cover under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY).

The extension of the medical insurance scheme, approved by the Union Cabinet here on Thursday, envisages smart card-based cashless health insurance cover of up to Rs. 30,000 under any empanelled hospital anywhere in the country.

The RSBY would be extended to registered domestic workers in the 18-59 age group, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told reporters after the Cabinet meeting. The majority of them were women.

Earlier this month, the Cabinet had approved extension of the scheme to 55 lakh beedi workers by 2013-14.

The funds for the scheme would be allocated from the National Social Security Fund for Unorganised Workers. The premium will be shared by the Central and State governments in the ratio on 75:25. In case of North East Region and J&K, the ratio will be 90:10.

The estimated expenditure to be borne by the Centre will be Rs. 29.70 crore in 2011-12, Rs. 74.25 crore in 2012-13, Rs. 148.50 crore in 2012-14 and Rs. 297 crore in 2014-15.

Domestic work form one of the largest sectors of female employment in the urban areas. Domestic workers are unorganised and the sector remains unregulated and unprotected by labour laws. These workers come from vulnerable communities and backward areas and most of them are illiterate, unskilled and do not understand the urban labour market.

The beneficiaries would have to get identification certificates from any two of the four institutions -- the employer, resident welfare associations, registered trade unions or the police, Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said.

The upper limit of the annual contribution would be Rs. 750 per beneficiary — of which the Centre would bear Rs. 565 — and another Rs. 60 for the smart card, she said. A maximum of five members per family would be covered.

The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana provides for smart card based cashless health insurance cover of Rs. 30,000 annually to below poverty line (BPL) workers (a unit of five) in the unorganised sector and is being presently implemented in 25 States and Union Territories. The scheme has since been extended to building and other construction workers registered with the welfare boards constituted under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996, street vendors, beedi workers and such Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme who have worked for more than 15 days during the preceding year.

Asked whether a law would be brought to protect the rights of domestic helps as suggested by National Advisory Committee Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Mr. Kharge said, "the issue [of making a law] came up recently. As of today, we are extending the benefits of an existing programme to domestic workers".

Mr. Kharge said a task force, constituted in December 2009, had recommended among other things the extension of RSBY to domestic workers.

The extension of the scheme would not only provide them insurance benefits, but also help in preventing their exploitation, Ms. Soni said. It would also lead to registration of workers and placement agencies.

General insurance IPO norms on way

The insurance regulator will come out with a separate set of guidelines for general insurance (non-life) companies that are looking to tap the capital market with initial public offerings. The regulator is waiting for Sebi’s recommendations on the disclosure requirements.

According to R.K. Nair, member (finance and investment) of the IRDA, the disclosure requirement for non-life insurance companies will be different from those of life insurance firms given the nature of cash flows and risks underwritten by them.

“We are awaiting the recommendations of SCODA (Sebi Committee on Disclosures and Accounting Standards) which is still working on the disclosure requirements for non-life insurance companies. Once we get these recommendations, we’ll come out with the IPO guidelines,” Nair said on the sidelines of an insurance summit of the Indian Chamber of Commerce here today.

He declined to give any time frame for releasing the guidelines.

Early this week, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) unveiled draft IPO guidelines for life insurance companies. In the draft, the requirement that an IPO applicant should be profit-making has been replaced by the condition that the embedded value of a life insurer must be twice the paid-up equity capital of the company. The embedded value is the value of all in-force policies plus the net worth of a life insurance company.

Health insurance scheme for beedi workers a poll device

The general secretary of Gondia CPI and district president of AITUC Hauslal Rahangdale flayed State government's health insurance scheme for beedi workers in the district as a gimmick in view of the coming municipal elections in Gondia and Tiroda.

The government had in a recent notification included Gondia in a list of 21 districts which have been selected for the health insurance scheme for beedi workers. The insurance cover is of Rs 30,000 on payment of a principal amount of Rs 30 per year. The criterion for the scheme is that the workers should come under the BPL category and also the insurance will cover only five members of the family. Government has asked the district administration to issue smart cards for this purpose. The work for which is going on war footing according to the staff of the hospitals earmarked for the scheme. Approximately 50 thousand such cards are to be readied by June 30.

Houslal Rahangdale said that when National Health Insurance Scheme for those under BPL category already exists in the state since 2008, the propriety of a new scheme only for beedi workers is totally unnecessary and the motive behind the move is questionable.

He said that according to a government circular dated August 27, 2010 the information about such workers is supposed to be collected by the insurance company appointed by the Nodal Officer. So the move to deploy the staff of the government beedi workers hospitals for this work is a mystery. As per information the Nodal Officer had appointed Tata AIG Insurance Company for this propose but according to local labour officer one MD India Insurance Company is doing this work on behalf of Tata and it appears to have passed this work on to the medical officers due to political pressure, Rahangdale said.

After studying all these aspects Rahangdale asked, why the government did not come out with a simple package of Rs 30 thousand for a family which becomes member of this insurance scheme or work towards providing additional facilities to the existing hospitals for the beedi workers from the funds which will be collected from the beedi workers. Rahangdale pointed out that the whole scheme is eyewash and demanded enquiry into this scheme.

Tata AIG General Insurance wins awards at Indian Insurance Awards

At an awards ceremony organized by India Insurance Review, Tata AIG General Insurance bagged 2 prestigious awards, 1 each in the health and general insurance category.

India Insurance Review and Celent presented the India Insurance Awards 2011 - the awards were presented to the Indian insurance industry in a glittering ceremony held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Mumbai this evening.

The jury consisted of Mr S B Mathur, Secretary General, Life Insurance Council; Mr S L Mohan, Secretary General, General Insurance Council; and Mr Vepa Kamesam, Managing Director, Institute of Insurance and Risk Management (jointly promoted by IRDA and AP Government).

Tata AIG General Insurance Company (TAGIC) was awarded the Company of the Year Award 2011 for Health Insurance and Best Product Innovation Award 2011 in the general insurance category for the year 2010 – 2011.

TAGIC was awarded the Company of the Year Award 2011 for Health Insurance segment during the Indian Insurance Awards. This award was to recognize the company that stood out amongst its peers in terms of Revenue growth, Profitability, Innovation & Customer service.

Mr.Gaurav Garg, MD of Tata AIG General Insurance Company said “The award reinforces our perception as a strong health insurance company as evidenced also by the HT MaRs Customer Satisfaction Survey (results published in March, 2011) which ranked us as No.1 in customer service satisfaction and No.2 in claims settlement satisfaction. This perception is likely to be buttressed by our imminent entry into the mediclaim space as we await IRDA’s approval for the Mediprime product. It is a testament to our wide and strong product range of benefit based secondary medical insurance products that have not only delivered a profitable business line but also awards from the industry and a high degree of customer satisfaction. Our dominating presence in the Overseas Travel Insurance which is perceived as an Overseas Mediclaim also contributes in no small bit to our position.”

Tata AIG’s current health insurance portfolio consists of the following products

Wellsurance (Executive, Family and Woman version) – A comprehensive, fixed benefit hospitalization, surgical and critical illness plan that offers guaranteed insurability at renewal for whole life.

Accident and Sickness Hospitalization Cash Plan – pays a fixed daily hospitalization cash benefit based on number of days of hospitalization

CritiCare – Pays a fixed lumpsum benefit in the event of diagnosis of any of the select critical illnesses.

TAGIC was also recognized with the Best Product Innovation award amongst General Insurance players in the Indian Insurance Awards. The recognition was for Private Client Group Home secure Policy that was launched in August 2009. It is a unique product catering exclusively to the High Net Worth client’s need of insuring their high value possessions such as paintings, valuables, work of art, jewelry, collectibles etc. It offers packaged cover for the entire home contents including above items with first in the market covers such as hole in one expenses, loss in value for fine art, pairs and sets, etc.

Additional services are offered along with the insurance cover e.g vulnerability assessments, transit supervision, conservation and storage assistance.

Tata AIG General Insurance Company provides insurance solutions to individuals and corporates. It offers a complete range of general insurance products including insurance for automobile, home, personal accident, travel, energy, marine, property and casualty as well as several specialized financial lines. Tata AIG believes in offering innovative and relevant insurance solutions in the retail and commercial space. Each product offering is backed by expertise and an unparalleled claims service.

Tata AIG’s products are available through various channels of distribution like agents, brokers, banks (through bancassurance tie ups) and direct channels like Tele Marketing, Digital Marketing, worksite management etc. Tata AIG has its operations in 59 cities.

Bharti AXA General Insurance crosses 100,000 claims

Addressing some of the biggest apprehensions Indian customers share with regard to insurance related matters, Bharti AXA General Insurance has consistently focused on improving service delivery mechanisms as a key differentiator to enrich customer experience. As a part of that, the company has paid over 100,000 claims since inception.

North and West together contribute to about 75% of the claims by number, with the bulk of the rest coming from the South. As with other multi-line players, the Motor & Health products contribute to 97% of the claims. In keeping with its strong commitment to taking insurance to every Indian, the Company operates a 24X7 call centre for claims notification and manages claims through a decentralized organization with empowered personnel & processes in order to ensure prompt decision making at every level. This enables a customer to claim anywhere irrespective of the branch from where he purchased insurance. In addition to tying up with an extensive network of over 3500 hospitals and 2000+ car garages for cashless settlement of claims, the Company is focusing on streamlining its internal processes through the use of process improvement initiatives such as Six Sigma in order to benefit the end Customer. Click to apply Health Insurance

The company firmly believes that Information Technology has a huge role to play in delivering superior claims service and is investing more in the development of a customer & partner centric IT platform to achieve this objective. Additionally, the Company continues to leverage AXA's global expertise to invest in developing the technical and soft skills of its claims staff with a view to resolving claims in a Fast, Friendly & Fair manner. Keeping the customer at the center Bharti AXA has already paid over 93% of the claims that have been reported while some are under process. As a result of focus on customer centricity the number of all complaints recorded as a percentage of the customer base has been significantly below 1%.

"We are extremely excited to reach this landmark in our history and the credit goes to our employees and partners who work tirelessly & passionately to help our customers when they need empathetic support in an adverse situation. We rely strongly on customer advocacy and view each customer as a long-term client. What especially differentiates us is our ability to provide claims consultancy at the very beginning of the client relationship rather than at the occurrence of the loss. With every achievement our responsibility and accountability to our customers & society at large also increases. We are working with added vigour to become the Preferred General Insurance Organization in India by focusing on our core attitudes of being Available, Attentive & Reliable." said Rajagopal Gopalan, Head, Operations and Claims, Bharti AXA General Insurance.

"While we are growing as a company and have crossed 550cr of GWP for the year 2010-11 and plan to grow at over 60% this year we continue to focus on Re-defining general insurance in India by delivering superior customer & partner experience." said Dr. Amarnath Ananthanarayanan, CEO & Managing Director, Bharti AXA General Insurance

Indian IT cos slow to tap into the healthcare vertical

Indian IT majors have been slow to tap into the healthcare services vertical, which has in recent years emerged amongst the fastest growing verticals after banking , financial services and insurance ( BFSI). Being less affected by the recession and more open to IT spends, the healthcare space has grown in importance.

There is no Indian IT company in the top 10 healthcare service providers list brought out by Healthcare Informatics, a healthcare advisory outfit, for 2010. Global IT majors like Dell, CSC and Cognizant now have over $1 billion revenues coming in from their healthcare IT practices. Cognizant, thanks to its erstwhile parent Dun & Bradstreet, which also owned IMS Health, has a strong lineage in the healthcare practice. CSC has an over three-decade experience in healthcare IT.

In contrast, Infosys does not even report healthcare revenues, as it is not significantly large. For TCS, Wipro and HCL, healthcare in 2010 contributed less than 10% of total revenues, and ranged between $200-500 million.

But Indian IT majors are now looking to catch-up with their global peers in the $100-billion global healthcare IT market. Wipro recently made a leadership change and is recruiting senior healthcare experts to tap into the space.

India's largest IT services company TCS recently announced that it is aggressively looking for healthcare acquisitions in Japan and Germany.

Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, director for globalization advisory in Zinnov Management Consulting, said that Indian companies need to build domain expertise in the space to tap into it. Infosys CFO V Balakrishnan agrees that compared to other verticals, domain expertise in healthcare is vital due to the various regulatory compliances and complex nature of the space. He added that the company's US subsidiary set up in 2010 is building a strong healthcare management team with local talent and is getting closer to potential customers.

Acquisitions are one way that global IT companies have in the past penetrated into the space. Dell through its acquisition of Perot Systems, a leader in healthcare IT, has been able to make significant gains.

Gopi Natarajan, CEO of BPO/KPO firm Omega Healthcare, said that the major healthcare IT outsourcers are insurance firms, pharma companies and service providers like hospitals. He added that the market is highly under penetrated and opportunities are huge as only 2% of total costs in the healthcare sector go towards IT.

According to Abhishek Shindadkar, IT sector analyst at ICICI Securities, the US healthcare reform bill will throw up more healthcares IT outsourcing contracts. The country is the biggest outsourcing market for healthcare IT services followed by UK and APAC.

The new US law seeks to expand healthcare coverage by expanding medical aid eligibility, subsidizing insurance premiums, providing incentives for businesses to provide healthcare benefits, prohibiting denial of coverage and denial of claims based on pre-existing conditions, and establishing health insurance exchanges.

Health Insurance launched | Bharti AXA General Insurance

Bharti AXA General Insurance has launched the Smarthealth Critical Illness policy.

Features:

· It promises to cover income loss or wealth depletion due to critical illness.

· The cover gives one the freedom to opt for an upfront payment towards cost of treatment to the extent of 5 lakh on the diagnosis of the illness. This is irrespective of the treatment or hospitalization costs.

· An individual plan for 26-35 years can cost 658-1,644 for a cover ranging from 2-5 lakh.

· In the case of a family floater option for the same age group, the premium is 1,464-3,650 for the same insurance cover.

Smarthealth Critical Illness covers 20 ailments, including those of heart, lung, liver and terminal illness.

What makes National Insurance third best?

In the HT-MaRS survey, customer satisfaction on customer servicing and interaction was measured using six parameters — product enquiry stage, purchase transaction, policy issuance, hospital network, renewal, and transparency. And the public sector National Insurance Company (NIC) ranked third, coming after private sector Tata AIG and ICICI Lombard.

There was also that little matter about it being the only state-owned company to feature at all among the top five in terms of customer satisfaction. The survey was carried out among 2074 medical insurance policy holders in eight major cities of India — Delhi, Lucknow, Kolkata, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

While industry analysts said that the insurer had resorted to reasonable pricing, which went in its favour, insurance sector experts pointed out that claims settlement takes longer in NIC compared to its competitors, which might explain the third position.

“It takes about one to one-and-a-half months for settlement of claims in NIC,” said a leading third party administrator (TPA), on conditions of anonymity.

So what can public sector insurers do to get better in the area of customer satisfaction?

The four PSU insurers — National Insurance Company, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and United India Insurance — which together manage about R6,000 crore of health insurance business, complain about being saddled with a commercially unviable claims settlement ratio of 115%. They have to say that the way TPAs function also has a major bearing on customer satisfaction, and forming a common TPA is one way of cutting down on costs.

“The four state-owned general insurance companies are looking to engage a third party administrator to ensure that customers are not put through any major trouble especially when we have no health regulator, the process is on track and we hope to have one soon,” said NIC chairman and managing director NSR Chandra Prasad.

TPAs are intermediaries between patients and insurance firms. Typically stationed at hospitals, TPAs take care of the administrative process of mediclaim policies. “This arrangement will provide economies of scale to the four insurers,” said Prasad. NIC has set a claim settlement target for 2010-11 at 90%. And as Prasad lets in, “We are focused on customer service more than profits and business models.”

As Amit Mitra, secretary general of industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry puts it, “The emphasis has to be on consumer awareness and satisfaction, provision of quality health care, improved insurance services and greater collaboration and trust between insurers and healthcare providers.”

IndiaFirst to introduce health insurance, pension products next financial

IndiaFirst Life Insurance, jointly promoted by Bank of Baroda, Andhra Bank and Legal & General, is planning to introduce health and pension products before March. The JV is also proposing to enter the micro insurance business in the 1st quarter of next financial.
The life insurance company expects Rs 800 crore premium collection throughout the 1st year of operation. So far, it has collected Rs 500 crore and by March end, could mobilise another Rs 300 crore, P Nandagopal, managing director and chief executive officer, IndiaFirst, told media persons on Monday.
“BoB and Andhra Bank both have around 4,800 branches across the country. Of this, about 3,500 branches are active and we are currently selling insurance policies through these branches,” he said.
IndiaFirst has 12 branches in the country and during the next financial year plans to open another 18. “We are looking for more business by increasing the alternate channel of distribution to sell our products and would appoint about 3,000 insurance advisers shortly,” he said.

You May Soon Be Able To key Health Insurers

The penetration of medical insurance is extremely low in our country, at around 15%, including all types of insurance central government health scheme, employee state insurance, group health and individual health. There are concerted efforts initiated by the government as well as the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) to improve the reach of health insurance to all sections of society and safeguard the interest of policy holders.

One of the important initiatives of the regulator is the proposed portability of health insurance. This is to ensure that a customer continues to enjoy benefits under his health policy even if he wishes to change his insurance provider for genuine reasons.

In the current scenario, a customer is more or less wedged to an insurance company, given that if he chooses another insurer during renewal, his policy starts afresh with all the waiting periods commencing again. For the uninitiated, waiting period is the time frame during which some of the claims shall not be payable under the health policy. For most new health policies there is a waiting period of 30 days under which no claim can be made other than accidents. Besides, there is also a one or two years waiting period for diseases like cataract, hysterectomy etc. And for other diseases which may have been existing prior to taking the policy commonly known as pre-existing diseases, the waiting period is for four years.

In simple words, policyholders will no longer be compelled to renew their health policies with their existing insurance company for fear of the waiting period starting all over again. As and when Irda introduces the portable health product in the market, customers who opt for such products will have the freedom to shift insurers without worrying about losing their continuity benefits.

Senior citizens, in particular, will benefit since they will find it difficult to shift their insurer if they are unhappy with their present one, as other companies would be reluctant to offer them new policies.

The introduction of a portable health product would also prove beneficial to insurance companies. This could act as a powerful product to approach the new customer segment hitherto untapped. And with competition, insurance companies would be thriving to continuously improve their efficiency standards in terms of customer engagement and relationship to ensure that the customers do not move away from them citing service deficiency.

In the current market scenario, it is very difficult to make a price comparison between products with exactly the same features. For customers who are price sensitive, opting for a health product with a lower premium might actually harm them at a later stage when they realise that the product features and terms & conditions do not cover (fully or partially) some of the ailments /conditions for which they have actually purchased the health product in the first place.

Portable health product on the other hand would have exactly the same features and terms & conditions and therefore a person intending to buy a portable product has to just compare the price before opting for the insurance company of his choice.

Mediclaim, motor insurance portability shortly

Insurance regulator IRDA on Tuesday said that mediclaim policy holders, who are not satisfied with the services, will soon be able to switch service providers at the same premium. The same would also be true for motor insurance policy holders. "It is high time that the insurance industry also moves to offer portability so that the mediclaim and motor insurance policy holders can switch their service provider...We have initiated a debate on the idea of portability and we would be arriving at a conclusion very soon," IRDA Chairman J Hari Narayan said at CII insurance summit.

To a question on whether this portability concept would apply to ULIPs also, he said: "Yes and no. Yes in the sense that there has to be a balance in the churn of ULIP's policy and their portfolio has to be evenly managed."
Narayan, however, added that portability cannot be randomly applied and the portfolio of an insurance company has to be balanced.
To a question on the status of Reliance General Insurance acquiring a south-based insurance company, he said: "We have certain issues which we are trying to resolve through discussions."
The IRDA chief added that work is progressing on formulating merger and acquisition norms for the sector.
"M&A norms would be announced soon. A committee is studying the issue," Narayan said.