Standalone health insurer Star Health Insurance is targeting a growth of close to 18 percent in terms of its top-line growth in FY27 driven by a ramp up in agents network and greater demand on the back of GST rate cut.
“Last year we did ₹20,400 crores of gross written premium, and this year we hope to do around ₹24,000 crores…Our new business growth has gone up by 2x after the waiver of GST and it’s sticky,” Anand Roy, MD & CEO, Star Health Insurance Company, told businessline in an interaction. “ With the GST relief given by the Government of India, the whole sector has seen a significant uptick in growth, including Star Health,” he added.
Good traction
The insurer is also seeing good traction in existing customers, who are now renewing their policies better due to the GST cut. While last year their average retention was around 87 per cent on volume basis, this year it has gone up to 88-89 per cent, Roy said. “We have more than 850,000 agents who are partnered with us. We add close to 100,000 agents every year,” he added.
Marking 20 years of its foundation, the company also announced the launch of an affordable new product targeted to bring increased health protection to those in Tier 2-3-4 cities.
Titled, “Value Plus’, the product customizes high sum-insured covers from ₹7.5 lakh to ₹25 lakh at nearly 20 per cent lower premiums. “All the basic requirements of the proper health insurance is covered in this [product]. We have tied up with a network of around 11,000 hospitals across the tier 2/3/4 locations, and based on that we are able to give a discounted premium, he said.
The company is also leveraging AI to improve efficiency and reduce operating cost.
“Almost 25 per cent o four claims are being processed through our AI models in our claim services. That’s resulting in better turnaround times, error-free processing, and better fraud detection as well,” he said.
With regard to claims payout, the CEO says they paid out ₹12,000 crores in claims last year, and claims ratio (premium collected versus claims paid) was close to 69 per cent. “96 per cent of our claims are paid in less than three hours time; we have to get to 100 per cent ,” he said.
The CEO also called out a “distortion of power” between healthcare service providers and insurance players as a key cause of claims disputes. “Healthcare industry is totally unregulated, but health insurance industry is fully regulated,” he said. Efforts are on to bring together healthcare providers and health insurance companies, he adds, noting that IRDAI along with CII has created working groups to bring both sides together to iron out friction in claims settlement.