IRDAI chief wants expansion of health cover to include OPD care

IRDAI Chairman Subhash Chandra Khuntia has urged the insurers to expand the ambit of health insurance to include outpatient care as part of the health insurance system to push millennial to buying insurance. It is time for insurers to move on to primary and secondary care, and preventive care as they have been focused on tertiary care and hospitalisation for long.
Speaking at a health insurance summit, Khuntia urged insurers to develop disease-specific products which could help policyholders in preventing different ailments.
He further said insurer need to catch people young for health insurance. “Youngsters have this notion that they are generally healthier than the older generation. We have a situation wherein a large proportion of health insurance is bought by the 40-50 age group,” said Khuntia.
In the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, health insurance has seen a surge in demand from consumers. At a time when the non-life insurance industry has been struggling due to the pandemic-induced lockdown, health insurance has seen 13.4 per cent growth in the first half of 2020-21, compared to the same period last financial year. The standard Covid products brought in by the regulator have also been received well by policyholders. So far, 15 million lives have been covered against Covid-19. The Covid-specific products were launched on July 10.
Speaking about the missing middle class from the health insurance sector, Khuntia said people at the upper end of the economic scale are aware of health insurance needs. For the poorer sections of society, the government has some health insurance schemes, such as Ayushman Bharat, but the middle class – estimated at 700 million people – does not avail of health insurance in a big way.