Star Health to plan 5 policies

The Chennai-based Star Health and Allied Insurance Co, the country's first stand-alone health insurance company, plans to expand its product basket by launching at least five new products in the next 3-4 months. The new products will cover areas such as diabetes-related ailments, trauma care, students' overseas travel and dental care. The company also plans a mediclaim product for the low-income group.

The company, which launched its operations in May 2006 with a capital base of Rs 105 crore, has garnered a premium income of Rs 14 crore and expects to collect over Rs 50 crore in four months.

At present it offers overseas mediclaim policies, group and individual mediclaim policies and personal accident cover and a major chunk of its revenues comes from personal accident care cover.

Star Health has recently entered into an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government to cover 1.09 crore people in the below poverty line in the state and has received a premium of Rs 10 crore.

It has also submitted its rates for another scheme of the Andhra Pradesh government to provide health cover for families in six categories.

V Jagannathan, chairman and managing director, Star Health, said the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irda) had extended a special case for Star Health by allowing agents to act as life and non-life agents and also as an agent of Star Health.

"This will help a standalone health insurance company like us to penetrate well," he said.

He said Star Health was hoping to garner more business from the corporate segment as the company was expected to have a better playing field with the proposed detariffing by January 2007.

The company is also proposing to collect 20 per cent extra premium in some of the locations where the hospitals and treatment charges are very high.

As Irda has asked for statistics, the company is in the process of preparing a detailed study on the same.

Jagannathan said the company's model was working well and it had increased the number of offices to 84 and employs about 800 people. It also offers a facility of round-the-clock free consultation with doctors with a 24-hour call centre.

It has about 17 doctors on its board and has tied-up with 47 doctors for reference purposes.

Of the 800 employees, about 650 are marketing executives and they are expected to appoint over 7000 agents in the next 3-4 months.