Health Insurance in 2023-24 constitutes over 40% of the non-life insurance premium. It includes Individual Health, Group Health, Government Schemes (another form of group health) and a small portion of Personal Accident and Travel.

As far as Individual Health is concerned, the last four years numbers are as follows:

YEAR Number of Lives covered Gross Premium

2020-21 5.3 crores INR 25,840 Crores
2021-22 5.2 crores INR 30,085 Crores
2022-23 5.3 crores INR 34,766 Crores
2023-24 5.6 crores INR 41,501 Crores

Number of lives in group may be growing. But group policies are short term. The only true reflection whether 20 to 30 years later, an entire generation is protected in their senior citizen years by health insurance is reflected only in Individual health coverage.

There are many questions for which we have no answers, and we need to research it for the sake of the current generation.

1) Is that older members are exiting due to high premiums and younger members are joining, due to which the number of lives covered is stagnant? If yes, it is excellent news for insurance companies since their portfolio is getting better and at the same time premium is increasing. But terrible news for society as a whole?

2) Are new individuals not joining at all and hence the number of individuals covered are stagnant? If so, then bad news for insurers. This will be a totally unsustainable model. The only way a health insurance portfolio is sustainable is if younger people keep joining at higher pace than the exits due to death. In a young country like India, this is easily achievable. If we cannot achieve now, what will be our situation when we reach the stage of declining population.

Blog by Atmaram Cheruvu