Six standalone health insurers paid Rs.664 crore as commission to their intermediaries like agents, brokers and banks, shows the latest data collated by Cafemutual from company’s websites.
Last year, standalone health insurers disbursed commission of Rs. 458 crore in FY 2015-16 indicating a 45% growth in commission payouts.
Of the Rs.664 crore, individual agents have received Rs.480 crore from health insurance sales, shows the data. Currently, 2.90 lakh individual agents have partnered with standalone health insurance companies to distribute health insurance policies. A rough calculation shows that the average commission payout to each agent is Rs.16,000 a year.
Similarly, corporate agents like banks and brokers received gross commission of Rs. 159 crore and Rs. 92 crore respectively last fiscal.
Country’s largest standalone health insurer by gross premium, Star Health Insurance paid the highest commission of Rs. 335 crore to its distributors. The company gets majority of business through its agency force of 1.50 lakh agents.
Apollo Munich and Religare Health Insurance followed Star Health by paying gross commission of Rs. 146 crore and Rs. 88 crore respectively. Similarly, Max Bhupa Health Insurance paid gross commission of Rs. 63 crore while Cigna TTK paid Rs. 26 crore in FY 2016-17.
Aditya Birla Health Insurance, the latest entrant amongst the standalone players paid gross commission of Rs. 4 crore to its brokers. The health insurer, who entered the industry in November 2016, does not yet have a large distribution force of individual agents.
Industry experts believe that the commission payouts in health insurance segment will increase further in the coming years due to increasing new business premium, lifestyle-related health complications and rising medical expenditure.
According to a Fintelekt report, the standalone health insurance market will touch Rs. 22,000 crore by 2022. Considering current commission structure of 15%, the standalone health insurers industry would disburse commission of Rs.3,300 crore to its agents.
Gross commission paid in FY 2016-17
|
Health insurers |
Agents |
Brokers |
Corporate agents |
Others |
Total commission |
|
Star Health |
309 |
18 |
3 |
3 |
335.6 |
|
Apollo Munich |
94.84 |
24.57 |
25.63 |
1.5 |
146.56 |
|
Max Bhupa |
39.5 |
8.65 |
15.15 |
0 |
63.39 |
|
Religare Health |
28.13 |
29.16 |
31.5 |
0 |
88.86 |
|
Cigna TTK |
9.03 |
8.22 |
83.94 |
0.48 |
26.13 |
|
Aditya Birla |
0.26 |
3 |
0.0032 |
0.015 |
4 |
|
Total |
480.76 |
91.84 |
159.2232 |
4.995 |
664.04 |
Source: Company disclosures