Health Insurance Companies Received 9 Lakh Claims until February 25; 84% Settled

In India, health insurance companies are seeing a massive rise in the number of Covid-19-related claims. The claims are increasing even if the growth speed has slowed down since the August-December 2020 period.

As per data compiled by the General Insurance Council, until February 25, general & standalone health insurance companies have received 908,849 Covid-related claims. It must be noted that these claims amount to Rs. 13,752.41 crore. Insurance companies have settled 761,676 claims, which amount to Rs. 7,141.33 crore, almost 15% of the health premiums the companies have collected till January.

All in all, the insurers have settled almost 84% of the claims in terms of the number of claims, and 52% in terms of the amount of claims.

It must be noted that in the 2020 July end, only 81,000 Covid-19 claims were filed with health insurance companies. The number doubled in a month to 160,000. By October end, the number had reached 475,000. By mid-November, the number had surpassed 576,000, reaching 664,488 in early December, amounting to Rs. 9,989.89 crore.

Bhabatosh Mishra, Director Underwriting, Products & Claims, Max Bupa Health Insurance said, “The number of cases may have dropped tremendously, but the claims did not follow the same path because a fair bit of our claims are in the form of reimbursement too”. He furthermore added that the number of reimbursement claims has increased in comparison to cashless claims. The same is said to be the reason behind the gap in the number of claims reported and those settled.

“In the case of many insurance companies, the claim settlement ratio is possibly a little higher as compared to what they had planned”, Mishra said.

According to the experts, even the planned treatment claims were quite less, but slowly increasing.

Disclaimer: This article is issued in the general public interest and meant for general information purposes only. Readers are advised not to rely on the contents of the article as conclusive in nature and should research further or consult an expert in this regard.