Secure your well-being with the shield of health insurance. Stay protected against unexpected medical expenses and invest in your health today for a worry-free tomorrow.
Visit us at –
Any Query for Insurance Please Contact –
+91-9810039664, +91-9999125411, +91-7303384663
Who is Shammi Malhotra –
Shammi Malhotra has been associated with the Insurance sector for the last 28+ years. It started with LIC and as the market expanded, I kept on exploring new vertices. With health insurance, it has been almost 10 years. My relationship with Various companies goes back to 2012. I firmly believe India should focus on making health insurance mandatory for all citizens as people only realize its importance when they fall into a critical situation – which should not be the case at all! I am a proud Club Member with HDFC ERGO and STAR HEALTH for the last 7 years and have a customer base of 3,500+ customers. Additionally, have attended various training programs organized by Life and Health Insurance companies in India and abroad. I sincerely look forward to supporting the customers with the best health plans for them and their families.
Life insurance companies reported a 73.41 per cent jump in death claims during the fiscal 2021-22 as the Covid pandemic took a heavy toll on human lives.
Insurers paid out Rs 45,817 crore involving 15.87 lakh policies towards death claims during 2021-22 as against Rs 26,421 crore (10.83 policies) in the previous year, according to data available from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI). Of this, as much as Rs 17,269 crore claims were due to Covid deaths, IRDAI’s Annual Report said.
On the other hand, insurers shelled out a total of Rs 41,631 crore towards health insurance claims and death claims due to Covid during the year.
Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), India’s largest life insurer, paid out Rs 28,408 crore involving 13.49 lakh policies towards death claims in 2021-22 as against Rs 18,295 crore in the previous year. ICICI Lombard settled claims worth Rs 2,977 crore and HDFC Life Rs 2,608 crore, among private players, during the year.
Interestingly, life insurers repudiated life claims worth Rs 448 crore involving 1,550 claims due to Covid in FY2022.
Out of Rs 41,631 crore claims involving Covid, Rs 24,362 crore was paid by general and health insurance companies towards Covid hospital treatment claims and Rs 17,269 crore was paid by life insurers towards Covid death claims to the families.
There were 530,695 deaths due to Covid in India so far, according to the Ministry of Health data. However, the IRDAI report said 2.26 lakh death claims were settled by life insurers during 2021-22, indicating that around 3.14 lakh people who died due to Covid did not get any insurance benefit.
Health and general insurers settled 26.54 lakh claims even as hospital expenses shot up in the wake of Covid pandemic. Health claims worth Rs 7,223 crore were disallowed by insurers during the year, IRDAI said.
Meanwhile, LIC’s overall claim settlement ratio was higher at 96.02 per cent as against 94.13 per cent of private players, according to the IRDAI report.
Covid-19 pandemic hit the general insurance industry’s performance in FY2022. With a record underwriting loss of Rs 28,500 crore in FY 2021-22, the Rs 2.23 lakh crore industry with 31 players has been pushed into red, leading to a hike in premium in many segments. With the Covid pandemic prompting people to go for health insurance, premium collection under this route has gone up by 22.54 per cent to Rs 58,176 crore, making it the largest segment in the industry.
The loss occurred despite insurers reporting a higher investment income during the year. The industry reported underwriting losses of around Rs 19,400 crore in the previous year. “The high underwriting loss has led to a hike in premium by 5-10 per cent in many segments, especially health in the last six months,” said an insurance official.
The IRDAI has already proposed issuing composite licenses, which is a common license to operate in both the life and general insurance markets. This means a life insurer can enter the non-life segment like motor or heath business, and vice versa, which is banned as of now. It’s also in favour of reducing the minimum capital requirement from Rs 100 crore in order to enable the entry of smaller players, like micro insurers, to serve niche markets.
The government has decided to embark upon a comprehensive amendment of the legislative framework governing the sector – Insurance Act 1938 and IRDA Act 1999 – which is expected to take the reform agenda in the segment to the next level, facilitating the entry of more players, reduction in the capital requirement and issue of composite licences. While insurance penetration in India was 3.2 per cent in the life sector and one per cent in non-life, the figures for the US were 2.6 per cent and 9.1 per cent respectively.
For more information call us at 9891563359.
We are a group of best insurance advisors in Delhi. We are experts in LIC and have received number of awards.
If you are near Delhi or Rohini or Pitampura Contact Us Here
Covid pandemic has proved to be a boon for insurance companies. With people increasingly taking health cover to meet medical expenses, general insurance companies have reported a 29.81 per cent rise in premium income from the health segment to Rs 42,571 crore during the seven-month period ended October 2021.
This is almost double the growth of 14.3 per cent at Rs 32,796 crore witnessed in the same period of last year, when people spent most of the time indoors under a nationwide lockdown. Health premium income shot up by a record 34 per cent to Rs 5,463 crore in the month of October alone, according to figures released by insurance regulator IRDAI.
Industry sources say that demand from the retail segment is rising at a faster pace as demand for individual health policies is rising rapidly. The premium growth of standalone health insurers continues to be higher than industry average, indicating that retail premiums are growing faster than the group business as the standalone health insurers derive most of their premiums from the retail segment. Standalone health players reported a 37.85 per cent rise in premium income at Rs 10,500 crore during the 7-month period.
The rapid rise in health policies is being led by public sector New India Assurance which reported a 53.23 per cent rise in premium income to Rs 9,176 crore in seven months as against Rs 5,988 crore a year ago. The company reported a 135 per cent jump in premium income to Rs 1,327 crore in October alone, according to Irdai.
Overtaking motor insurance segment which was the top premium earning sector till last year, health insurance has been the main drivers of the non-life insurance industry since the commencement of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. The health segment has increased its market share from 25.8 per cent last year to 33.7 per cent in the first seven months of FY22.
Simultaneously, health claims by customers have also shot up with all insurers reporting higher claims in the wake of Covid pandemic. ICICI Lombard General Insurance, for example, reported that the impact of Covid claims on health book in the first half of FY2022 was Rs 561 crore as against Rs 115 crore in the same period of last year. While Covid infections have declined in the country in the last a few weeks, insurance companies have reported 25.64 lakh claims for Rs 31,624 crore from people hit by Covid till September 2021. Maharashtra registered the maximum number of claims at 8.47 lakh for Rs 8,650 crore followed by Gujarat with 3.24 lakh claims for Rs 3,793 crore, Karnataka 2.53 lakh claims for Rs 2,712 crore and Tamil Nadu 2.41 lakh claims for Rs 3,447 crore. Although the average claim amount per person across the country was Rs 1.23 lakh, the average claim settled per person was Rs 91,287.
Although Covid-19, especially the second wave, was very damaging to the health insurance segment in terms of a big spike in claims, it accelerated growth for the segment. Insurers have also hiked the premium on health policies and started demanding even vaccination certificates and stringent medical check-ups before issuing new policies. “With Covid pandemic under control, claims are expected to come down in the near future. The segment will then become a profitable area for insurance firms. It remains to be seen how long the high growth in this segment will continue,” said an industry source.
The overall growth in the general insurance segment was 12.54 per cent at Rs 1.26 lakh crore during the seven months ended October 2021.
For more information call us at 9891563359.
We are a group of best insurance advisors in Delhi. We are experts in LIC and have received number of awards.
If you are near Delhi or Rohini or Pitampura Contact Us Here
