Why should I buy health insurance from you rather than buying from elsewhere?

Very common question which we have from those who access our website is

''Why I should buy health insurance from you?"

Our reply is given and I thought let me put it down for benefit of many of you.

We handle products of all Insurance companies As a leading health insurance source, we are able to offer our customers:

1- Broad Selection. Because we are an Insurance Brokerage Company and not a health insurance company/an insurance company, therefore we can offer products from multiple insurance companies. We offer a broad or we can say 100% selection/range of products from all insurance companies and as a result, it allows you to find the Insurance Product that best fits your needs. In fact, we are the leading source in India of health insurance for individuals, families and corporate clients.

2- Best Prices. Health insurance premiums are filed by the insurance companies to the regulator and are approved by them (Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority). Whether you buy from us, your local agent, or directly from the insurance company/health insurance company, you'll pay the same yearly premium for the same product. Good thing about us is that we tell you about all the products and also the service level of various companies.We have the feedback from large number of our clients.

3- Fast Processing. We offer the fastest way to get health insurancepolicy issued because we focus on health insurance and are handling so many proposals on everyday basis . This reduces average processing time significantly for you.We can be reached by phone /email as per your convenience.

4- Excellent Customer Care. We believe that you should enjoy the best customer experience available for getting the health insurance policy issued from us . The highly trained staff of our company handles your query in the professional way and with care, which it needs as you are important to us .They help you make the most of your money with professional, unbiased advice, which we only can give you because we are an Insurance Brokerage Firm and we handle all the products and that too of all the companies.

ICICI Lombard will not be aggressive in selling Health Insurance

On the one hand we notice aggressive advertising campaign of ICICI Lombard and at the same time we find the following statement has been issued by Sanjay Datta, head of health insurance, ICICI Lombard General Insurance, at an interactive session in Kolkata.
The statement is " Like most general insurance companies, ICICI Lombard would not be aggressive selling group health insurance policy due to high claim ratio"
We feel Health Insurance is a specialized product and co's like BUPA,Munich Re(DKV),Swiss Re will ultimately become active players in the Indian Market and traditional co's( General Insuarnce ) will start losing market share.
Incidentally ICICI Lombard has been having highest premium rates among health Insurance co's of the country.Root cause is that ICICI has been picking up marginal group policies in the past.It is good that they are realizing the realiites of business.

Joint Venture Partners in Health Insurance Companies of India

Very soon we will have Max BUPA and Religare Swiss Re entering the health insurance sector in India. With their joining we will have 4 co's in this sector and the details are;

Foreign Partners in Health Insurance Co's of India - June 2009

Name Foreign Partner Status

Star Health ETA Ascon, Oman Operational,
Revenue Rs.511.93 crores
(2008-09)


Apollo DKV DKV (Munich Re.C.) Operational,
Germany Revenue Rs.48.95 crores
(2008-09)

Max BUPA BUPA, UK Moving towards becoming
Operational

Religare Swiss Re, Switzerland Agreement reached

Reliance General Insurance Company Limited Increases Minimum Sum Assured Limit

Reliance General Insurance Company Limited has increased minimum sum assured limit for Health Wise Silver Plan to Rs.3 lakhs. Even though in leaflets/ brochures Reliance Health Wise minimum sum assured limit for Silver Plan is Rs.1 lakh. But in May 2009 Reliance has stopped accepting proposals for less than Rs.3 lakhs. It means minimum sum assured under Reliance Health-Wise Silver Plan is now Rs.3 lakhs. We feel that this is a step in the right direction as insurance companies are under pressure to control costs. Cost of issuing a policy is estimated at Rs.350 to 450. For a policy where premium is Rs.800 only the insurance company is definitely losing good amount ofmoney.

We are also informed that Reliance has issued guidelines under which at the time of renewal sum assured cannot be increased for Health Wise Silver or Gold. This will motivate customers to buy higher sum in the beginning itself.

For more information visit http://www.healthinsuranceindia.org

Customers to benefit from New Renewal Rules for Health Insurance Policies w.e.f June 1, 2009

Customers to benefit from New Renewal Rules for Health Insurance Policies w.e.f June 1, 2009

These rules as announced by IRDA are:

1. An insurer can’t deny renewal on any ground other than fraud.

2. The policy brochure will have to clearly state the terms and conditions of renewal

3. It will have to mention the age till which renewal will be allowed.

4. It will have to mention the circumstances under which and the extent to which premiums will change.

5. Insurers will have to intimate the policy holder about any change in premiums three months in advance and not at the time of renewal.

6. Renewals will be allowed up to 15 days from the due date.

Renewal Age :

The policy document will now mention the maximum age till which an insured person can renew a policy.

Premium Changes :

Though the insurers will reserve the right to alter the premiums, they would be able to do so only under certain conditions, like the policyholder having a poor track record or medical inflation.

Insurance regulator tells non-life insurers to mention renewal related details in health policy documents to ensure transparency.

Grace Period :

An insurer will have to renew policies up to 15 days from the actual date of renewal.

We will welcome service from Insurance Company where the customer can go to the website and look at renewal premium by feeding his policy number and password-may be his mobile number or date of birth.This will save lot of headache and early collection of premium by the Insurance Company.Let us see who starts this as a customer service.

For more details please visit http://www.healthinsuranceindia.org

Knee transplant is now costing Rs 5.50 lakh

Many emails /phone calls which are received by us ask us the cost of specific treatment so that the sum assured is taken for suitable amount.

Today I met a person who has recently gone for knee transplant in New Delhi and the cost he has incurred is Rs.5.50 lakhs( 550,000).

Costs are going up.It is better to go in for higher sum in the beginning rather than realizing at the time when you need the insurance that you are having underinsurance.

Health Insurance figures for the year ending March 2009 are available

Provisional Health Insurance figures for India for the year ending March 2009 are now available.

At Rs. 6500 crores this shows an increase of 30%. I personally feel the figure should be higher because of the fact that various schemes implemented by the Government of India for below the poverty line persons were implemented during the year. We were talking of crores of persons being insured. If that was true then 5 crores persons would have added Rs 400 crores, may be the impact of cut throat competition has resulted in group health insurance policies being issued at very low rates.

Let us watch as updated statistics will become available in the coming months.