Covid 19: Making Health Insurance a priority for Indians

With Covid19, the priorities of people are changing. Paradigm shifts have begun. And amidst all this, Health Insurance has emerged as a shield against financial uncertainties caused by this disease.

Health and protection are two of the biggest priorities today and health insurance stands at the cusp of both. People who earlier used to look at health insurance as a good-to-have tool are now realizing that it’s a must-have, especially due to increasing Covid19 cases in the country and uncertainty around treatment costs.

The Max Bupa Covid-19 survey

With an aim to understand the impact of Covid19 on the behavioural patterns of people towards health insurance, we at Max Bupa conducted a survey in 11 key cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Pune, Patna, Jaipur and Chandigarh. The findings of the survey reflect a drastic shift in the mindset of people, with health insurance awareness being at an all-time high and possibly the highest we have seen in the last decade. People across life stages are now more willing to buy adequate health coverage for themselves and their loved ones. Some key findings of the Max Bupa Covid19 survey:

·      Only 10% people in the pre – corona phase were interested in purchasing a health insurance to protect against new-age diseases and medical emergencies whereas now 71% of respondents consider health insurance as a necessity in being more prepared to fight an unforeseen pandemic like the Covid-19.

·      The pre–corona phase was absolutely different, where 60% of the respondents were prioritizing household expenditure, while the others prioritized kids’ education and household products including gadgets and personal devices. Whereas today, 73% of the respondents are willing to pay more premium in the next 1-2 months to get coverage for Covid-19, reflecting how health insurance has clearly emerged as a priority purchase due to this pandemic.

·      Owing to huge medical expenses, Metros and Tier II markets have shown a similar concern w.r.t the purchase of Health Insurance.

·      Women are now at the forefront taking financial decisions with many of them emerging as strong advocates of health insurance, especially in key cities including Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Lucknow. In fact, 28% of women as against 21% men made an enquiry about health insurance at an early stage, when coronavirus case was first detected in #India.

·      The pandemic has led to greater awareness about health insurance among millennials as well. Youngsters who are usually first-time insurance buyers and earlier often de-prioritised the purchase of health insurance, are now realizing the importance of being insured early. In fact, 60% millennials want a comprehensive plan that covers diseases like Covid-19, as compared to only 37% millennials earlier.

What is persuading people even more to purchase a health insurance is the potential risk of a job loss and the quarantine period disrupting the income of individuals. The pandemic has affected incomes of many families and financial uncertainty has emerged as a major concern for many, encouraging them to opt for health insurance.

Comprehensive health covers: The real protective shield

The growing awareness around health insurance is resulting into purchase from all over the country, including Tier II & III markets as well. But what we need to understand today is that we need to channelize this positive outcome to encourage more people to opt for health insurance over a longer term. Health insurance has always been a product that needs to be renewed year after year to secure the health and well-being of people. Max Bupa has also recently launched Corona Kavach, a standard COVID product for stipulated time-period ranging from 3.5 months to 9.5 months and while such products have their own importance in these unprecedented times, they don’t take away the need for comprehensive health insurance covers, especially with high medical costs and growing burden of lifestyle diseases. 

Customers at the centre of everything we do

At Max Bupa, we have stood strongly by our customers in these testing times. All our hospitalisation plans cover corona virus treatment costs and we were also among the first insurers to cover the cost of consumables up to a reasonable amount to support our customers.  Till now, we have received around 1700 COVID claims, over 95% of which have been prioritized and approved within 30 minutes on a cashless basis.

In this new normal, we are also enabling social distancing as ~90%+ of our business is being logged through digital applications across all traditional channels as well, allowing the seller to virtually explain the policy on video calls, allows our doctors to do a medical assessment also on phone and issue the policy to our customers. The digital platforms that we have built - Chatbot Cia, Max Bupa Health app can address most basic servicing needs of our customers regarding policy details, claims, renewal, purchase, premium payment, etc.

Our customers are at the core of everything we do and we have been supporting them by extending health and wellness services at home, through our #InsureCare program which provides support for telemedicine with doctor assistance on call within 30 minutes, curated online fitness and nutrition programs and advise from specialised doctors and leading psychologists across the country free of cost!

I believe it is a challenging time for us all, but we are deeply committed to the health and mental well-being of all our customers. As many experts believe, we now need to learn to live with the coronavirus since the vaccine is still a few months away, making concepts like social distancing a necessity in the times to come. Owing to these developments, it has become all the more important to focus on our health and fitness while learning to live the new normal.