How health insurance transformed into a ‘pull product’

Health insurance is no longer a push product but a pull product, believe insurers. While initial demand in recent months was due to the pandemic, gradually, more people are buying medical cover on their own and insurers believe the demand will continue to increase.

“The pandemic created a lot of awareness on health insurance. Initially, insurers were a bit sceptical about how much of the demand was due to a fear of Covid and how much was awareness. Now we see that awareness also has increased. People are looking at various types of products and are more focused on understanding the offerings,” said Shreeraj Deshpande, Head – Health Businesses, SBI General Insurance.

Deshpande expects the health insurance segment to continue growing faster than other lines of business for non-life insurers.

“Earlier, the demand for health insurance was driven by major towns and cities but even people in Tier 2, 3 and 4 cities are buying such covers now,” he said, but stressed that the penetration of health insurance in the country still has a long way to go.

Instead of Covid specific covers, people are looking at comprehensive policies, and the average sum insured has increased to anywhere between Rs. 3 lakh and Rs. 5 lakh.

Anup Rau, Managing Director and CEO, Future Generali India Insurance, also said the demand for health insurance has not gone down despite the ebbing of the second wave of the pandemic.

“One of the things we discovered is that the effort required to advise the customer to buy a health insurance policy is far lower. I think people have an appreciation for health insurance,” he said.