Bharti AXA General Insurance, has received the regulatory approval for its critical illness insurance policy. The company currently offers group and individual health as well as personal accident products under its current health offering to the market.
According to the company, the critical illness insurance policy offers various unique benefits by covering 20 critical illnesses like cancer, first heart attack, heart valve surgery, coma, organ transplantation, kidney failure, to name a few.
"The policy is a comprehensive cover that offers flexibility to choose not only from a range of add on covers like home nursing, hospital cash allowance, in-patient physiotherapy charges and many more, but also provides the insured the option to choose coverage as reimbursement of hospitalisation expenses or as a lump-sum. The product can be taken as a 'stand-alone' cover or as a supplement to one's existing health insurance cover," said Narayanamurthy, senior vice president - underwriting and product development, Bharti AXA GI.
With a cashless facility at over 4000 of Bharti AXA GI’s network hospitals, the company offers five per cent discount on policy renewal premium for every claim-free year. "Critical illness cover is extremely important as illness can affect us at any time. Our aim is to raise awareness of the benefits of critical illness and other health insurance products," said Amarnath Ananthanarayanan, CEO, Bharti AXA GI. Bharti AXA GI is a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises, an Indian business group and AXA, a global company dealing with financial protection.
The company has also filed two more products with the regulator -SmartHealth Essential & SmartHealth High Deductible. Health insurance constitutes around 15 per cent of total general insurance premium. The health premium is about Rs. 4500 crores against the total GI premium of Rs.28,000 crores, according to the company officials.
Bharti AXA GI is a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises, an Indian business group and AXA, a global company dealing with financial protection. The joint venture company has a 74 per cent stake from Bharti and 26 per cent stake of the AXA Group. Currently the company has 34 offices in 26 locations across the country, and plans to expand to over 70 locations by the end of 2009.