Health insurance premiums could rise further: New India Assurance

The New India Assurance Company may increase premiums in group health insurance in order to reduce its loss ratios in this segment, said G Srinivasan, Chairman and Managing Director.

The company, which is the largest public sector general insurance company, is focusing on claims management and looking to improve claim ratio by appointing more doctors and scaling up its in-house Third Party Administrator (TPA).

“We are focused on profitablity by improving underwriting and claims management,’’ he said.

It had already raised premuims in its individual and floater health insurance schemes between 10 and 40%, during the just ended finanical year, said Srinivasan.

For the year ended March 31, 2018 the company brought down its loss ratio in the health insurance segment to 103% from 115% in the previous year. The loss ratio in the group health segment also reduced to 110% from 125%.

In the just ended financial year, the company posted profit after tax of Rs 2,201 crore, as compared to Rs 1,008 crore. The company declared a bonus of 1:1 and dividend of Rs 5 per share.

For the quarter ended March 31, 2018, the company posted profit after tax of Rs 336 core, against Rs 553 crore. This was because the company had an accounting policy change in the fourth quarter of last year.