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Nearly 27.5 million couples in India suffer from infertility. And the number is likely to go up by more than 10 per cent by 2022, according to a 2015 Ernst & Young report. Sensing an opportunity, insurance companies, which have so far been shying away from offering cover for infertility treatments, are now looking to come up with retail products.
According to Vaidyanathan Ramani, Head-Product and Innovation, Policybazaar.com, while it is not too difficult to find cover for infertility treatment on the group platform, most retail health policies exclude infertility treatments. Moving forward, insurers offering maternity benefit may look at designing products for infertility.
“Given that the process of treatment, including that of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) has got more defined, and the fact that the risk is not too difficult to comprehend, we may see more number of companies offering such policies,” Ramani told BusinessLine .
Only a few companies such as Magma HDI General Insurance and Star Health & Allied Insurance have offerings on the retail platform.
The cost of infertility treatment, which may require IVF, range upwards of ₹1.5 lakh to ₹2 lakh.
According to Anand Roy, Executive Director & Chief Marketing Officer, Star Health, despite increasing demand, very few couples seek fertility treatment because of cost implications.
“As problems associated with maternity increase, couples look for alternative treatment. The increasing success rate of such treatments means a rise in exclusive maternity-related insurance covers for speciality products, such as infertility, genetic disorders and congenital anomalies,” Roy said in an e-mailed response.
Star Health launched the coverage for Assisted Reproduction Treatment in its product ‘Family Health Optima’ in December 2016.
Anurag Rastogi, Member of Executive Management, HDFC Ergo, felt that planning a child is a personal choice and should not be bound by any financial implications.
Magma HDI, which offers insurance for IVF treatment under its ‘OneHealth’ policy, witnessed ‘quite an encouraging’ response since its launch eight months back.
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