First Care - Review
Friday, June 8th, 2007[Starting from today I have added a new category - on financial advices, reviews and reports, largely limited to banking, financial services and insurance sectors. Hope this will help the readers of RE. The first article in this series is by a friend Kislay Verma, and he reviews a new product in the insurance market. Regards, DJ]
First Care
An Insurance Product Review by Kislay Verma
In India ‘Health Insurance’ is always a subject matter of General (Non Life) Insurance and mediclaim policies have traditionally been sold by general insurance companies like New India Assurance Company, Oriental Insurance Company etc.
Health Insurance market has not shown encouraging trends in these past years and its contribution to the growth of post-liberalized insurance industry has been fairly low. Not many known players have courted this market with more than just a cursory interest - sure, there are a regional health insurance players in South India which have cropped up in the recent past (Star Health Insurance being one of them which I can recall, Apollo is coming in a big way) but overall the scenario is pretty uncluttered.
The reason for this slow pace of growth in Health Insurance was the tariff regulations norms (Sec 64 of The Insurance Act 1938) wherein general insurance had limitations on the premium charged. The adverse claims ratio also contributed to it, apart from Morale Hazard (not to be confused with Moral Hazard).
Now that the general insurance business has been de-tariffed post January 2007 I expect some positive trends in this sector. Do not be surprised if you find a quantum leap in the premium of your Mediclaim policy or even your car’s Third Party Liability Insurance.
