A recently carried-out health insurance survey shows that Indians are not adequately covered for future medical emergencies. The survey also revealed that a vast majority (68%) have coverage of less than ₹10 lakh.
It also indicates that the majority of policyholders have not raised their coverage in the past 12 months. A majority of them say that their coverage is adequate — even those with ₹5 lakh coverage believe this.
For policyholders, one of the key reasons behind buying health insurance is to ensure access to timely and quality health care, reveals The Acko Health Insurance Index.
And those who intend to buy health insurance in the next three months will do so as a precautionary measure followed by access to medical care and to meet rising medical costs.
Among those who bought the insurance policy, 30 percent did so from the company’s portal, 29 percent did from aggregators such as Policybazaar, while the remaining 52 percent did so from advisors or agents.
Popular plan
One of the most popular plans is family floater i.e., a plan which covers family members. While the majority of policyholders have included their spouse and children in their policies, more intenders have expressed interest in including their parents in their family floater plan.
Among the ones who hold family floater plans, 88 percent have included their spouse, 75 percent have got their children covered, whereas 45 percent have included their parents.
Awareness about policies and features
The top 3 features that policyholders said were aware of include cashless treatments at the time of hospitalisation, presence of accident cover and the network hospitals. These three features were closely followed by 100 percent bill payment.
But policyholders who said that they were familiar with terms and conditions were least aware of the availability of unlimited coverage, consumable cover and room rent capping.
The lack of awareness of these terms and conditions has a significant impact on their belief that 100 percent of their bill will be covered.
One finding was a little surprising that shows that nearly half of policyholders were unaware of the provisions of insurance plans.
46 percent of policyholders believe that their health insurance policy will cover their entire bill including consumables which displays a lack of awareness around terms and conditions of health insurance policies.
Among prospective buyers (referred to as 'intenders' in the survey), 59 percent expect that their bill will be paid by the insurance company, which indicates that full bill payment is a feature that they are looking for.
Besides, 31 percent of policyholders believe that they are covered completely from the first day. Also, 27 percent of policyholders believe that there is no waiting period for certain ailments before they get the coverage.
The surveyors spoke to 1,000 respondents between the age group of 28-55 in tier 1 cities.
