Despite pandemic, health premium remains unchanged over the last nine months

Contrary to a few media reports, which estimated that the health insurance premium will go up due to the impact of pandemic, the premium amount of health insurance has remained constant for the last nine months, says a report released by Policy X.Com. 

“The health insurance price index remained unchanged since Jan 2021. Data seems to suggest that none of the 5 companies forming the part of the index have changed their prices”, said the report. 

The report pointed out that health premium changes with age. The report highlighted the average prices across different age categories.

Another important determinant is the number of members covered. While the premium rises with the number of members, the rise is not proportionate. For instance, including an adult of the same/lower age increases the premium by 50%. Whereas, the increase is 11.9% and 13.7% on covering first and second child respectively. Notably, children up to 18 years or 21 years are allowed to be a part of family floater plan by most insurers, said PolicyX.Com report.  

Also, as compared to term insurance, the premium variance is higher in the case of health insurance. This is mainly due to the variation in coverage, features and benefits offered by different insurers.   

Diving deep into plan-wise and amount-wise analysis, a 26-year-old reportedly paid Rs. 8,274 for sum insured of Rs. 5 lakh. The premium paid for Rs. 10 lakh was Rs. 10,403. In fact, the average premium across categories was Rs. 13,140 and Rs. 16,695 for Rs. 5 lakh and Rs. 10 lakh of sum assured, respectively, said the report. 

The premium hike is yet again not proportionate to the rise in insured amount. To elaborate, when the sum insured increased from Rs. 5 lakh to Rs. 10 lakh (100%), the premium increased by 27% (from Rs. 13,140 to Rs. 16,695).

Here are the details for other age categories. 

(Amount in Rs.)

According to the PolicyX.com report, the figures captured are based on average premium prices of five health insurance companies - Star Health, ICICI Lombard, Bajaj Allianz, HDFC ERGO and Care Health.