Less than one-fourth of India’s population is covered by public or private health insurance, creating a crying need for health cover. Moreover, since India also has a sizeable number of millennials who do not have health cover, insurance firms have increasingly begun using digital tools for easy accessibility and integrating health data with hospitals.
“There is a huge need for health insurance but relatively very low penetration in India,” acknowledged Mayank Bathwal, CEO of Aditya Birla Health Insurance Co. Ltd (ABHI), in an interview in Mumbai. One of the reasons for this low penetration, according to him, is the way a typical health insurance product is sold, which mainly gives the coverage benefit for hospitalization claims. “Healthcare expenditure is much more than just hospitalization, including medical check-ups and doctor’s fee, so more than half the population of the country does not believe in health insurance,” Bathwal added.
