Group Mediclaim: A Product for Health Insurance

Abstract

India's life insurance sector is the biggest in the world with about 360 million policies and the total market size of insurance projects is projected to touch US$ 350-400 billion by 2020 from US$ 60 billion in 2015. Even with such a huge opportunity in the marketplace, insurance companies have been able to penetrate the non-life insurance sector in India only in the range of 0.5-0.8 per cent. The authors have attempted to study this anomaly and have focused their attention on two aspects- the distribution of health insurance products and the purchase of products using the example of a typical customer. The article starts by addressing at length the various types of health insurance policies in the Indian market including the customer-centric innovations as well as the multiple distribution channels. In the second part, the authors use a case study to elaborate on the decision journey of a 30-year old man named Rex and discusses in detail the multiple challenges that affect health insurance purchases from a customer perspective.