Health insurance products that are seeing an accelerated demand, amid a raging pandemic, remained a positive influence on the overall performance of non-life insurers in August, too, even as motor segment stays in the slow lane.
Provisional data from insurance regulator IRDAI shows non-life insurers, who also include two specialised insurers, have posted a 10.4% year-on-year increase in gross direct premium to ₹17,623.3 crore in August.
Among them, standalone health insurers emerged star performers with a 36.4% increase to ₹1,462.9 crore.
General insurers’, who also issue health covers, gross direct premium grew 5.6% to ₹13,139.6 crore.
Max Bupa Health Insurance MD and CEO Krishnan Ramachandran said COVID-19 had acted as a catalyst for increased awareness of health insurance.
“We have seen significant uptick in business in recent months due to an increase in demand for health insurance. Since May, we have seen strong retail growth, driven by the significant increase in purchase of indemnity plans, and due to the fact that we are able to sell and serve our customers end-to-end digitally,” he said. Max Bupa posted 39% growth in August.
From 27% in March, the share of health insurance business in the insurance market had moved to 30% in July, IRDAI Member Non-Life T.L.Alamelu told a meeting on Friday.
For the period till August this fiscal, non-life insurers reported a 3.5% growth to ₹73,965 crore While standalone health insurers’ gross direct premium increased 25.9% to ₹6,269 crore in the five months, general insurers’ growth was flat at ₹62,669 crore.
Health Business Head at Policybazaar.com Amit Chhabra said people now are more aware of the need of health insurance and want to be covered against the healthcare expenses which are on the rise.
On the 0.02% growth of general insurers, he said the GI preposition includes a large part of motor insurance and some part of travel insurance also and health. Last year, motor insurance saw tremendous growth. Compared to that the business has been on the lower side this year.
