T S Vijayan, Chairman, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), today recommended that health insurance should be driven by the consumer and the community it serves. He said that health insurance is a financing mechanism where in the community pools its funds to be made available to those who need to pay for their medical expenses.
Addressing the eighth FICCI Health Insurance Conference, the annual flagship event on the theme 'Creating Value through Customer Centricity', the IRDAI Chairman said that apart from product innovation, affordability of health insurance is the need of the hour. He suggested that the insurers should work towards increasing the voluntary customer base, from the current eight percent to at least 20 to 25 per cent of India's population in order to increase affordability.
He emphasized that a balance needs to be created between the expectations of the consumer and aspirations of the industry. FICCI Health Insurance Conference has emerged as a public private platform that has brought together the stakeholders from the government and private sector to collectively derive solutions for the challenges and barriers faced by the sector in its growth.