Hiring slowdown slowing health insurance growth, says Medi Assist CEO

Mumbai: While a slowdown in corporate hiring is bringing down healthcare insurance premium growth, it is being partly offset by more employees opting for add-ons and additional covers beyond what their employer offers, according to the top executive of India’s largest third-party administrator.

“If you look at the industry’s group premium growth in the first half [of this fiscal], it is about 11%...this is probably among the lowest growth rates in a long, long time,” Satish Gidugu, CEO of Medi Assist, told Mint in an interaction on Thursday. The company still doesn’t see a significant jump in employment numbers across industries, he said.

What is slightly easing the pressure is employees bringing in more family members onto their plans, buying more add-ons and additional outpatient covers, and bringing flexibility into their policies, he said.

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“For the last two years, the number of outpatient claims we have processed has crossed the number of in-patient claims,” Gidugu said. “Many employees are still working in a hybrid or remote model. They want to opt-in for services that are locally and digitally available, for example, teleconsultations, or home lab visits.”

Premiums and revenue growth

Medi Assist, which works with insurers, group and retail policyholders, and beneficiaries of government schemes as a health benefits administrator, saw its premium under management grow 18.1% year-on-year to ₹10,583 crore in the first half ended September. Group premium grew 15.6% on-year to ₹9,343 crore, while retail premium jumped 41.2% on-year.

The company’s operating revenue for the first half was ₹348.5 crore, growing 15.4% over a year earlier. Its net profit rose 65% to ₹40 core.

Medi Assist is focusing on retail premium for growth in addition to group premiums.

Medi Assist announced in August that it was acquiring a 100% stake in Fairfax-backed Paramount TPA for ₹312 crore. Gidugu told Mint that the company is currently awaiting regulatory approvals which will take 3-4 months. Once the merger is complete, Medi Assist TPA market share will grow to 36.6% for the group segment and 23.6% of the health insurance industry by premiums managed. 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 an independent director after his appointment as managing Director and CEO of Galaxy Health Insurance Company Ltd. Anil Kumar Chanana also resigned as an independent director.