INSURANCE
Health insurance providers need to develop disease-specific products: Irdai
Oct-16-2020

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) Chairman Subhash Khuntia has urged health insurance providers to develop disease-specific products and also focus on providing preventive care to policyholders. He emphasised that health insurers should come out with innovative products based on the need of the public. Under such focussed products, insurance companies can bring together medical experts to make aware policyholders on steps to be taken to prevent various diseases.

Khuntia said currently a large proportion of health insurance is bought by the age group of 40-50 years and insurers should try to attract the young population. he said ‘If more young people come in then they will get protected against ailments and at the same time since most of them may not fall sick frequently, they will contribute to the (health insurance) kitty which will help the other population’. Another way to attract the young population to buy health insurance is to have outpatient care as part of the health insurance system. He also said ‘For too long, we have concentrated on tertiary care or hospitalisation, but it should now move to primary and secondary care, the outpatient care and more so to have preventive care’.

He suggested insurance companies can introduce the concept of family physician, annual health check-up, vaccination as part of the health insurance policy. This would result in early detection and with simple treatments things can be remediated. Khuntia asked health insurers to tap medium and small industries or informal sector in the country where the opportunity is vast. He urged insurance companies to tap markets in smaller cities, towns and rural areas where there is ample scope for health insurance. He also emphasised on having collaboration between various stakeholders in the health ecosystem to have a protocol for treatment of diseases.

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