RUNNING FOR COVER

Health insurance premium is shooting through the roof and policyholders are worried sick

- NACHIKET KELKAR

UDIT BHANDARI, a real estate consultant, lives in Gurugram, Haryana, with his wife and eight-year-old son. He has a family floater health insurance policy from a private insurance company. Family floaters are health insurance plans that cover health care expenses of any of the members of a family, and they are very popular because of the flexibility. But Bhandari is worried, as his plan’s premium has gone up exorbitantly. “For a cover of ₹5 lakh, I paid a premium of ₹28,578 for two years (2022-24). For the same policy and the same cover, this time (2024-2026) they have quoted 39,500, though I had not made any claims in the past five years,” he says.

Bhandari is not alone. In a recent survey by LocalCircles on health insurance premiums, around 21 per cent of the 11,000 respondents said their premiums jumped 50 per cent in the past year. Around 31 per cent said their premiums went up by 25-50 per cent and about half of the respondents said their premiums increased by more than 25 per cent.

There are several reasons behind this rise. Insurance premiums usually go up with age. Also, there has been significant cost inflation in the health care sector. “In health care industry, the cost of treatment increases at the rate of 10-15 per cent,” said Ashish Yadav, head of products at ManipalCigna Health

Insurance Company. In fact, prices rose massively during the pandemic. Bhandari said that in some of the top private hospitals in Gurugram, the consultation fees charged by specialists had gone up from around ₹1,000 to ₹2,000.

“While the number one factor that impacts health care cost is inflation, number two is unanticipated incidents like the Covid-19 pandemic. There could be a spike in various other infections and related diseases. Our lifestyles are also changing. There are increasing incidents of cancer and cardiac-related ailments,” said Yadav.