Indians ignore parents in health insurance

When it comes to caring for parents, the Internet-savvy, middle-income group Indian leaves a lot to be desired, going by his neglect in securing health insurance policies for them. A majority of such Indians buy policies for self, spouse and children; only a minuscule 3 per cent of them are bought for parents.

Sharing the details on the basis of data analysis, the co-founder and CEO of insurance aggregator, policybazaar.com, Yashish Dahiya, said, “If one looks at health insurance policies bought online, about 75 per cent of them of buyers are married; a bulk of them buy for self, spouse and children. Barely 3 per cent of them buy for their parents, and they prefer to insure their mothers more than their fathers.”

Buyer profile

On the profile of online buyers and insured amount, he said, “A majority of them, about 80 per cent are salaried, out of which about 40 per cent earn more than Rs 5 lakh per year, while 25 per cent fall in the Rs 3 to 5 lakh income group.

Most of them, comprising about 80 per cent, take insurance cover ranging from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4 lakh, while 5 per cent of them opt for Rs 10 lakh insurance cover.”

On the mismatch between insurance products searched for by prospective customers and those offered to them offline, he said, “While the preferred insurance products online are term (33 per cent), health (30 per cent) and investment (5 per cent), the corresponding figures in the conventional mode are 1 per cent, 3 per cent and 80  per cent respectively.”
This, he said, showed the extent of mis-selling of insurance products and at the root of slow insurance penetration in India. Last month, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had referred to it, saying, “In my view, the reason why insurance is stumbling in India is because of mis-selling of products and complex products.”

Policybazaar.com finalises $5 m fund
 
Bangalore, DHNS: Policybazaar.com plans to raise $5 million from a venture capitalist, whose name Dahiya declined to disclose. “The deal is pretty much done and will be announced within the next few weeks,” he said. The first institutional investor, Info Edge (India) contributed $4 million in 2008. Later, policybazaar.com raised $7.5 million in three tranches, from Info Edge and another investor, Intel Capital, in 2010 and 2011. 

The share capital of ETechAces Marketing & Consulting that owns policybazaar.com will be Rs 85 crore, post the latest round of fund-raising. The stake of the three institutional investors will be about 75 per cent.

On initial public offering (IPO), Dahiya said, “The environment, at present, is not right. Also, we want to touch revenues of Rs 150 crore before we go for an IPO.” He expected to close the current financial year with revenues of Rs 45 crore and estimated 2013-14 revenues to be Rs 70 crore.