Aditya Birla Health Insurance Co. Ltd wants to position itself as an influencer, using wellness incentives to boost customer engagement, cost efficiencies and claims ratios.
“Our thesis is very clear that we are building a long-term relationship with our consumers. If we can do anything to influence our consumers’ health positively, it’s good for them, it’s good for us,” managing director and chief executive Mayank Bathwal told Mint.
While the insurer can’t play a medical role, which is the domain of the health fraternity, regulations do allow insurers to reward policyholders for “good health behaviour”.
“We will only play the role of an influencer and maybe an additional layer of support to the customer,” he said, adding that the insurer has been on this journey for the last 8-10 years.
The strategy is to reward healthier customers and let them stay on their health journey, nudge those on the edge to be more consistent, and, lastly, intervene with high-risk customers to help them manage their health.
As this cohort of grows, the insurer’s claims ratios will improve, helping boost profitability. “Our requirement for price increase has been much less than the others because my overall claim ratio will be lower,” he said.
To be sure, premium increases have also remained limited due to the removal of goods and services tax (GST) on retail term and health insurance policies. This has supported the company’s premium growth, with most customers opting to retain their existing sum assured while increasing coverage instead of lowering premiums.
On average, the sum assured has increased by 15-20% since the GST was removed in September 2025, Bathwal said, adding that an increase in new policy sales has also supported this growth.
Overall, the initiative seems to be bearing fruit, with the insurer growing faster than the market, a trend Bathwal attributed to the products being “more relevant” to customers. In 2025-26, the company’s gross written premium 39% year-on-year to ₹6,855 crore, faster than the industry growth of 15.4%. The insurer had a market share of 13.7% amongst standalone health insurers, an improvement of 110 basis points year-on-year. It reported a net profit of ₹3,764 crore for FY26, up 13% year-on-year.
In addition, around 40% of policyholders today engage with the insurer about their health, whereas around 11% of retail health indemnity customers received some benefit for good health, compared with 5-6% two years ago. There’s also the pool of high-risk customers, where the insurer has reduced the claims ratio by 7-8% through intervention.
Continuous engagement
Ongoing engagement is another element the is looking at to help improve efficiencies. Today, on average, over 500,000 of the insurer’s app customers spend 65 minutes on the Active Health application every month to track and log their health metrics, access health and wellness-based communities and reach the insurer’s network of health coaches and partners.
As per Aditya Birla Capital’s investor presentation for Q4 FY26, the loss ratio (a measure of profitability; a lower ratio indicates higher profitability) was 94% for customers who were physically active and engaged for up to nine days in a month, and 75% for those active for more than 10 days. In comparison, the loss ratio for inactive customers was 100%. In addition, active customers showed more than 11% better persistency—a measure of customer stickiness—than inactive customers.
While allowing the insurer to gather customers’ health data and better underwrite them, it also allows the company to ascertain health risks and work with policyholders to help them manage those conditions.
“This is a serious thing for us, it’s not just a product benefit which we put in. And then, the whole organization works to make this happen,” he said, adding that sales teams educate potential customers on the rewards and benefits at the time of selling the policy and also engage after the policy sale to remind customers of the benefits.
“We believe that our cost of investment will actually more than pay off through lower claims. We have now gained confidence that our model works. It works at scale, and it creates impact at scale.”
Differentiated approach
The health insurer is also extending the same approach to its group health business, taking advantage of the shift in corporations’ willingness to invest in employee well-being. The group business currently accounts for around 45% of the insurer’s total business.
The differentiated proposition, according to Bathwal, is the flexibility the insurer seeks to provide not just in core insurance and sum assured, but also in features such as outpatient department and maternity benefits.
The company is also working to educate its group health customers that the corporate coverage may not be “good enough” and to encourage them to take individual coverage as well.
“Unfortunately, what’s also happening is that it’s not necessary that people are falling sick more, but that the sickness is getting detected more,” Bathwal said, adding that this warranted the need for innovative products in terms of being flexible and inflation-proof (where the sum assured keeps increasing over the years).
This includes the insurer’s latest proposition, the wellness-first ‘Activ Yuva’ health insurance plan, which offers health rewards, OPD benefits and income protection, among other benefits. Herein, the insurer is also looking to tap existing group health customers, Bathwal said. He was speaking at the sidelines of the product launch event.
“We probably have the only product in the world where consumers can get up to 100% of their premium back. We can create access to good health for consumers, and our interests are completely aligned.”