ICICI Lombard revamps health offerings in view of evolving customer needs

Private sector general insurer ICICI Lombard has revamped its health insurance offerings keeping in mind the evolving consumer needs, which have taken the centre stage because of the ongoing Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

The insurer has launched four new plans, namely Health Shield, Health Shield Plus, Health Elite, and Health Elite Plus that are a part of its “complete health insurance” offering. These plans are powered with new features such as unlimited reset of sum insured wherein a customer gets the benefit of resetting up to 100 per cent of the base sum insured unlimited times in a policy year for an un-related ailment. Other features include worldwide covers where inpatient expenses outside India will covered, but there is a co-pay of 10 per cent.

It has also come up with features such as claim protector benefit that will pay for the list of non-payable items. And, the sum insured protector feature shall increase the sum insured every year according to the prevailing inflation rates thereby ensuring that customers are adequately covered due to rising prices. The new products will also have features such as domiciliary hospitalisation, emergency assistance, air ambulance, outpatient coverage that too, cashless, super no claim bonus and others.

“The new plans introduced will enable customers to avail a host of value-added services such as free annual health check-up, online chat with doctors, e-opinion, dietician, and nutrition e-consultation, among others,” the company said in a statement.

“The premium will be in line with the product offerings. Since there are more features, hence they will be priced accordingly”, said Sanjeev Mantri, executive director, ICICI Lombard General Insurance. All the features and the new products of the insurer will be available on its application — IL Take Care – which is being positioned as a one stop solution for health concerns of customers of the insurers.

The health insurance sector has been pleasantly surprised with the growth in premiums it has seen in the period since the the Covid-19 pandemic started. Retail health segment saw a 34 per cent rise in premiums in the April-October period, with standalone health insurers witnessing almost 48 per cent growth in premiums collected in their retail health portfolio, while general insurers have seen a 21 per cent growth in the same period.

“People have realised that health insurance is an essential spend. It’s no longer a discretionary spend”, said Sanjay Datta, chief – Underwriting & Claims, ICICI Lombard General Insurance.

On the other hand, as an industry, the general and health insurers have received more than 500,000 claims worth more than Rs 9,500 crore and have settled more than Rs 5,000 crore worth of claims so far.

ICICI Lombard has collected premiums to the tune of Rs 7,994.30 crore in April-October period of FY21, up 2.04 per cent in the same period last year. Of which, heath premiums have gone up by merely 2 per cent to Rs 1,685.41 crore. Shares of the insurer closed at 2.40 per cent lower at Rs 1,451 on the NSE.

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