General insurance companies in India continue to witness increasing number of claims for coronavirus treatment. Officials in the insurance industry said insurers had received around 2.07 lakh claims amounting to over Rs 3,300 crore. Insurance companies have settled over 1.30 lakh claims amounting to Rs 1,260 crore as on September 10.
Maharashtra tops the list, where insurance companies have received over 84,400 claims amounting to Rs 1,076 crore. Senior officials in the industry said besides Mumbai, places like Pune and Thane continued to report high claims in the state.
While states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka has seen around 24,155 and 17,800 claims, respectively. Even Gujarat has seen 17,700 claims amounting to Rs 273 crore. “If the number of positive cases increase, we might see more claims in the days to come. We expect that industry would soon exceed the claims amount of Rs 3,500 crore,” said an industry participant. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, there were 9.86 lakh active Covid-19 cases in India as on September 14, another 37.80 lakh were discharged and there were 79,722 deaths.
The pandemic has created an increased awareness about health insurance in the country. Investors have continued to buy Covid-19- specific policies in the last few months. The insurance regulator had allowed companies to launch Corona Rakshak and Corona Kavach policies. From July till August-end, over 15 lakh people were covered under both the policies.
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has also indicated that they are looking to increase the timelines of both the pandemic-specific policies. The average ticket size for a Covid claim is around Rs 1.5 lakh in urban areas and around
Rs 50,000-75,000 in semi-urban or rural areas. Where the condition of patient is serious, and the individual has been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), the claims are in the range of Rs 6 to 8 lakh.
The current health crisis has prompted many to buy health insurance policies in the past few months.
The Irdai data revealed that in the current financial year till August, standalone health insurance companies have seen premiums of Rs 6,268 crore compared to Rs 4,981 crore in the same period last year, registering 8.5% growth. Health premiums are the biggest segment in non-life insurance industry, in terms of premium, followed by motor insurance.
