Aditya Birla Health Insurance Company Ltd is looking to break even over the next three years and targeting to be among the top three players in the business.
A subsidiary of Aditya Birla Capital Ltd, the company has witnessed a strong addition to its customer base since it starred operations in October 2016 — benefiting from the Birla brand, a strong distribution network and a strategy that incentivises its customers to focus on health rather than a transactional relationship.
Mayank Bathwal, the CEO of Aditya Birla Health Insurance Company Limited (ABHICL), said the insurer had been successful in expanding the market, which known for its low retail penetration.
“We have expanded the market by bringing more people into the insurance net. These are those people who were either not getting insurance or who were finding insurance being not relevant for them,” Bathwal told The Telegraph.
“We are not here merely to finance healthcare costs. The aim of ABHICL is to help the customer and guide him in living an healthy life. That is not only in the customer’s, but also in our interest since as an healthcare company, if my customer is healthy, I gain (in terms of lower claims).”
The market has recently seen a churn with HDFC picking up a majority stake in Apollo Munich Health Insurance. Though the penetration of insurance is low in India, accident and health are the fastest growing segments in the non-life sector. It is expected that over the next five years, accident and health would overtake motor insurance to occupy the top slot in the general insurance segment.
ABHICL has seen a rise in the number of lives insured since starting operations nearly three years ago: from 0.2 million in October-March 2017 to 1 million in 2017-18 and 2.3 million last fiscal.
The company, a joint venture between the Aditya Birla group and MMI Holdings of South Africa, reported a gross written premium of around Rs 500 crore last fiscal.
Bathwal said the company’s rate of growth was two times that of any other insurer in the same stage of operations. Retail customers made up 65 per cent of the premium, and the company expects the share to go up to 70 per cent next fiscal.
