ICICI Lombard to offer health risk assessment to corporate clients

ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Ltd is offering health risk assessment of the employees of its corporate clientele.

“We want to move to preventive side while providing health insurance solutions to corporate clients. This will help them in saving on premium outgo, among others,” Mr Amit Bhandari, Vice-President (Health Underwriting & Products), ICICI Lombard, told Business Line here.

Apparently, this is one of the means for the company, which claims 10 per cent market share in general insurance, to tackle competition.

“We don't want to be in the price race to woo customers but prefer to win them over by offering value-added support and service,” Mr Bhandari said.

Priority area

Health insurance is a priority area for the company as about a third of the Rs 4,200-crore premium collected during last financial year came from the health segment, he added.

“At our company, the growth in this segment is good. From 22 per cent in 2008, it had gone up top 33 per cent in 2010-11,” the ICICI Lombard functionary said.

Even at the industry level, health has become a key focus area for general insurers and the portfolio was growing at 35 per cent per annum for the last six years.

Lesser discounts

The insurers were, however, offering lesser discounts on health insurance compared to earlier in view of increasing claims, he said, adding that “medical inflation is also a concern now.”

On the retail front, ICICI Lombard would like to offer high-sum insured and need-based products. “We are working on a pipeline of new products in this regard,” he added.