Page 13 - Insurance Times February 2016

Insurers to launch cashless health insurance products Future Generali India

for OPD soon aims to grow Health In-

OPD or outpatient department ex- be offered in the hospitals that are part surance Premium by 50%
penses are a major space in health in- of our network," said Suresh Sugathan,
surance policies, which are centred on head, health insurance, Bajaj Allianz in next 2 years
hospitalisation. That, however, could General.
change with health insurers working on General insurer Future Generali In-
products that cover OPD as Many insurers have started providing dia Insurance
well. Insurers like Bajaj outpatient coverage to aims to grow by
Allianz and Royal Sundaram large corporate clients 50%, its health in-
are mulling standalone prod- and have built their own surance premium
ucts that reimburse OPD, cashless networks. from its retail busi-
consultation and pharmacy "Hence, it is very natu- ness in the next two years, as it plans
expenses to policyholders on a cashless to launch new products and expand
basis. ral that they will extend cashless OPD its agency channel, a top company
covers for retail policyholders too. This executive said.
ICICI Lombard had rolled out an OPD trend should catch on this year," said
cashless facility for its corporate cus- Mahavir Chopra, head, health, acci- "Health insurance segment is grow-
tomers in 2014. "We are planning to dent and life insurance, Coverfox.com. ing in our country and we are look-
come out with a standalone OPD prod- ing to grow our non-motor insurance
uct in the next financial year as cus- In 2014-15, the total number of poli- business," said Raghavendra Rao,
tomers genuinely feel the need for cies stood at 12.60 crore, while in Head-Retail, Future Generali India
such a product. The cashless facility will 2013-14, it was around 11.50 crore. Insurance Company. Gross written
But the number of complaints re- premium (GWP) of the company, a
mained same in terms of percentage. joint venture between Future Group
and Generali, stood at over Rs1400
'10th bipartite settlement' dreaded by Bank retires, crore in the last fiscal through March
2015. Of which about 14% came
Pensioners from health insurance, which in-
cludes personal accident and travel
Bank pensioners and retirees have ex- federation. The insurance company insurance, he said.
pressed their fears over the fate of a has, in its advisory to banks on Novem-
medical insurance scheme introduced as ber 13, 2015, gone back on the term Health Insurance in India
part of the 10th bipartite settlement. of the policy already agreed upon and
S. R. Sengupta, General Secretary of to which premium has already been increased to 28.80 crore
paid by the respective banks, Sengupta
the Confederation, has said. The number of people covered by
written to the Chair- health insurance policies in 2014-15
man of Indian Banks' But United India Insurance has heatedly has risen to 28.80 crore, or 24 per
Association (IBA) de- contested this. It is not as if a cover al- cent of the country's population,
manding that retirees ready granted is being taken off, top against 21.62 crore in 2013-14,
be granted identical in- sources in the company told. The con- Health Minister J. P. Nadda informed
surance benefits as troversy is borne out of inadequate un- Parliament.
regular employees "as agreed by the derstanding of the policies that apply
bipartite settlement." separately to employees and retired In a written report to the Lok Sabha,
persons. These policies have been de- the Minister said Insurance penetra-
The stance of United India Insurance, vised on a footing different from each tion by public sector companies dur-
which is implementing the scheme, has other. In the case of retired persons, it ing the year 2015 was up at 21.14
caused a lot of anguish, says the All In- is optional to banks to do this. crore from 14.53 crore in 2013-14
dia Bank Pensioners' and Retirees' Con- and 12.85 crore in 2012-13. Private
companies, too, had expanded their
Munich Health to increase stake in Health Insurance FDI coverage to 7.66 crore in 2014-15
from 7.09 crore in 2013-14. However,
Germany-based Munich Health is considering raising its stake in Indian joint this is down from 7.88 crore people
venture, Apollo Munich Health Insurance, from 26 per cent. However, whether who had health insurance cover from
the foreign partner will raise the stake to the maximum permissible limit of 49 private firms in 2012-13, he added.
per cent is not known.

The Insurance Times, February 2016 13

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