Health Insurance in India offers significant potential for growth, given the low market penetration and the continuous increase in medical costs. Cigna TTK Health Insurance Company, one of the leading standalone health insurers, is growing its business at a rapid pace in this environment. New business premiums grew at 84 per cent last year and are expected to grow at that pace this year too. It collected premiums of a little over ₹300 crore in calendar 2017 and expects to top ₹400 crore this calendar year. On the verge of completing its fourth year of operations in March 2018, the company expects to break even by the sixth year of its operations. Cigna TTK has been a retail-focussed player with 95 per cent of its business coming from that segment. It may redress the imbalance slightly with a greater thrust towards corporate business in the next few years. Last year also saw a change at the shareholders’ level with the Manipal Group taking over TTK’s share and Cigna increasing its stake to 40 per cent from 26 per cent. Excerpts from an interview with the company’s MD and CEO Sandeep Patel: