Medi Assist CEO says hiring slowdown leads to slower health insurance growth

MUMBAI: While a slowdown in corporate hiring has led to slower growth in health insurance premiums, this has been partially offset by more employees opting for riders and additional cover provided by their employers, executives at India’s largest third-party administrator said. .

“If you look at the industry’s group premium growth in the first half [of this fiscal]which is about 11%…that’s probably one of the lowest growth rates in a long time. ” said Satish Gidugu, CEO of Medi Assist Mint during an interaction on Thursday. He said the company still hasn’t seen a significant increase in employment across industries.

Some relief, he said, is that employees are adding more family members to their plans, buying more riders and additional outpatient coverage and bringing flexibility to their policies.

“In the past two years, we have handled more outpatient claims than inpatient claims,” Jidugu said. “Many employees are still working in hybrid or remote models. They want options for local and digital services, such as remote consultations or home lab visits.”

Premium and income growth

Medi Assist, a health benefits manager that works with insurance companies, group and retail policyholders, and government program beneficiaries, saw its managed premiums grow 18.1% year over year to $10,583 crore in the first half ended September. Group premiums increased by 15.6% year-on-year $93.43 billion, retail premiums increased by 41.2% year-on-year.

The company’s operating income in the first half of the year was $3.485 billion rupees, a year-on-year increase of 15.4%. Net profit increased by 65% ​​to $40 cores.

In addition to group premiums, Medi Assist is also focused on retail premium growth.

Medi Assist announced in August that it would acquire 100% of Fairfax-backed Paramount TPA for $312 crores. jidugu told Mint The company is currently awaiting regulatory approval, which will take 3-4 months. After the merger is completed, Medi Assist TPA Group’s market share will increase to 36.6% in terms of premiums, and its market share in the health insurance industry will increase to 23.6%. As of September, the company’s market share was 19.2%.

The company on Thursday also announced the appointment of three new independent directors – Alamelu TL, Narain Duraiswami and Madhavan Ganesa. Gopalan Srinivasan resigned as independent director after being appointed as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Galaxy Health Insurance Company Ltd. Anil Kumar Chanana also resigned as independent director.