High demand for comprehensive health policies as Covid cases soar again

With Covid-19 infections rising at an alarming rate in the country over the past few weeks, hospitalisations have gone up substantially. This, in turn, has resulted in a spurt in demand for health insurance products recently.
 
However, a distinct feature seen this time around is, more and more people are opting for comprehensive health insurance products rather than Covid-specific products.
 
Covid plans were in huge demand last year but have since petered out. Experts said the uptick in demand for health insurance products they are seeing now is not to the extent they had seen last year during the initial months of the pandemic.

 

Amit Chhabra, business head, health, Policybazaar.com, said, “In the last couple of weeks, as the number of Covid-19 infections increased, there has been a spurt in demand for health insurance. The demand for such products has more than doubled than what we see normally during this period. April, typically, is a slow month for health insurance but we are seeing a very rapid surge in demand. And, the demand is for comprehensive health products with higher sum assured and not so much for Covid-specific products.”
 
“The share of younger and healthier people who are looking to buy health insurance products has increased in the past one year,” he said.

 
“We are seeing some pick-up in demand for comprehensive health insurance products. But the percentage increase is not to the extent that was seen during the initial months of the pandemic”, said Sanjay Datta, chief, underwriting & claims, ICICI Lombard General Insurance.
 
The health insurance portfolio of general and standalone health insurers has seen considerable growth last fiscal year, driven by huge demand for retail health products. In FY21, the non-life insurance industry saw health premiums go up 18.11 per cent to Rs 58,584.36 crore, compared to Rs 49,600.72 crore in FY20. Similarly, retail health has seen 38 per cent growth in the same period to Rs 26,258.39 crore from Rs 19,013.97 crore.

 
The health portfolio’s share in non-life business has gone up to 29.48 per cent, an increase of almost 3 per cent in the past year. Experts said, in FY22 as well, health portfolio is expected to do well.
 
Bhabatosh Mishra, director of underwriting, products & claims, Max Bupa Health Insurance, said, “Enquiry about health insurance and the overall conversion have gone up in the last few weeks. We are pretty much seeing the repeat of what we saw during the first wave. We have seen increased interest in Covid-specific products as well as for comprehensive health insurance products. But, this time, the enquiry about comprehensive cover is a lot more than what it was during the first wave. The reason being Covid-specific products are available for short tenures and people have realised that Covid is not just a one-time thing and it may stay longer.

 
“We are also seeing a lot of portability requests coming in. Typically, what we are seeing is, a lot of people who have old policies where the sum insured is lower, are looking to move,” Chhabra added.