Weekly Insurance Round-up Tuesday, October 5, 2021

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Super excited to be back with the latest edition of Beshak’s Weekly News Round-up, a deep analysis of all the important insurance news articles from across the country! 🤓

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• ICICI Lombard’s study shows a decrease in heart-related claims. 📉
• PM Launches digital health ID cards. 💳
• ₹31,624 Crore claimed for Covid treatments. 🦠
• Max Life Insurance’s AUM crosses ₹1 Lakh Cr. 📈
• Account Aggregator System for seamless sharing of financial data. 💻
• Digital Health Platform MFine raised $48 Mn. 💰
• Insurance Startup Loop Health Raised $12 Mn. 💸

• As per an internal claims analysis done by ICICI Lombard, it was found that claims related to heart diseases have reduced during the pandemic. 
• When compared gender-wise, 
  • The percentage of claims went down by 19.42%  among women, where 2,033 claims were made in FY2019-20 and 1,638 claims were made in FY2020-21. 
  • Amongst men, the claim percentage dropped by 13.34% where 5,327  claims were made in FY 2019-20  and 4,616 in FY 2020-21.
• Claims across all metro cities saw a dip; however, Mumbai and NCR still retained the top two spots in the number of claims made this year. (similar to the last two years when they were the cities with the highest number of claims too)
• While claims for most types of conditions and treatments decreased, the exceptions were for chronic diseases like osteoporosis and asthma where the claims have risen by 1.34% in 2020-2021.
• Claims for elective procedures (planned hospitalisations) went down by 20%, for acute medical cases decreased by 16.79%, and claims under non-elective procedures (urgent medical procedures essential to the survival of the patient) dropped by 17.95%.
• Beshak Take: The pandemic has aroused fear among the people with respect to health and hence, a lot of people have started adopting healthy lifestyles by changing their eating habits and inculcating exercises in their daily routine.

Sources: The New India Express | Livemint

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• On 27th September 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) with an aim to create a national health ecosystem that supports universal health coverage. 
• Every Indian will get a Digital Health ID that will work as a health account and contain details about every test, illness, doctor’s visit, medicines taken, and diagnosis done. This Health ID can be created as follows: 
  • Visit the NDHM site and create the ID using your Aadhaar card or Mobile Number.
  • You can also get a Personal Health Records (PHR) address for consent management and subsequent sharing of the health records.
• Once the personal health records are linked to the Aadhaar, they can be viewed with the help of a mobile application (by individuals), by healthcare professionals, doctors, nurses etc. (using the Healthcare Professionals Registry), and by hospitals and medical facilities (using the Healthcare Facilities Registries)
• Beshak Take: Introduction of Health ID will be beneficial for both customers and insurers. Here are some of the ways in which this Health ID will be beneficial provided the customers declare correct and accurate details:
  • While the health ID will provide a detailed insight into the medical history and PEDs of any individual - this will take many years to become effective. 
  • In the meanwhile, we should encourage buyers to continue making honest and accurate medical declarations - and not rely on the health ID data alone - so they will not face any issues at the time of the claim.. 
  • In the long-run, this can help prevent overcharging by insurers as the health data available can help them make better informed decisions about the premium. Customers can also get discounted premiums while purchasing insurance products. 
  • The data can be automated and integrated with the insurer’s underwriting process, making the entire health insurance issuance process seamless and smooth.
  • Further, it will also prevent duplication of bills and help reduce costs due to less paperwork.

 Sources: Livemint | Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission

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•  As per General insurance council data, since March 2020, insurers have received 25.64 Lakh claims amounting to ₹31,624 Cr. 
• Out of this, 22.38 Lakh claims worth ₹20,430 Cr. (65%) were settled, a total of 1.81 Lakh (24%) claims worth ₹1319 Cr has been repudiated, the remaining 11% of the claims are under process.
• Maharashtra was the worst-hit state followed by Gujarat, Karnataka, and Tamilnadu.

• As per the segment-wise report, the insurer’s health portfolio increased by 32.35% to ₹30,192 Cr. till August 2021 from ₹22,830 Cr. till August 2020.
• There was an increase of 22.35% in retail health policies (from ₹9566.77 Cr. to ₹11705.21 Cr) and an increase of 25.79% in group policies (from ₹11903.82 Cr. to ₹14973.69 Cr.)
• As the second wave has stabilized, insurers are witnessing the demand for health insurance plateauing. Having said that, they are expecting further growth in the future, and believe there won’t be a sudden drop in demand as there is still a fear of the third wave.

Sources: The Indian Express | GIC Council

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• On 30 September 2021, Max Life Insurance announced that its Assets Under Management (AUM) crossed ₹1 Lakh Cr. as of 23rd September 2021.
• AUM is the total market value of the investments that a person or entity handles on behalf of investors.
• As per IRDAI’s data, the Life insurance industry has an AUM of ₹39 Lakh Cr. as of March 2020. LIC remains the largest company with assets, followed by SBI Life.

• During FY20-21, Max Life registered a growth of 22% in total new business premium (the premium acquired from new policies for a particular year) combining both individual and group, and 19% in individual adjusted first-year premium (an adjusted premium is a premium on an insurance policy that does not remain at a fixed price indefinitely). 
• Max Life has also acquired a 10.8% market share with these growth tactics among private life insurers.

Source: Livemint

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• Earlier this month, the government unveiled the Account Aggregator (AA) network to allow sharing of financial data of individuals that can be used by banks, insurers, fintech companies etc. 
• Through this, individuals can digitally and securely share their financial information with any financial institution. With their consent, financial institutions will get direct access to this information. 
• This replaces the age-old practice of blank-cheques that were taken as security by financial institutions for loans and money management - and every transaction will need to be approved by the user separately. 
• Financial hassles involved in the Indian Financial System like sharing physically signed or scanned copies of bank statements, running pillar to post for notarising a particular document, or sharing the login credential for sharing financial history to a third party will be replaced by simple, mobile-based, safe digital data access and sharing process. 
• Unlike Credit-bureau data that shows only loan history or credit score, the AA network will allow sharing the data of transactions or bank statements. Data related to tax, pension, securities, and insurance will be available gradually. In the future, it will also allow healthcare and telecom data to be accessible to the individual via Account aggregators.
• On the insurance front, it will be easy for individuals to share their financial data in just a few clicks. Insurers require the income proofs of the customers for financial underwriting before issuing a term policy - and  this process will become seamless because of Account aggregators.
• Customers can register with any of the Account aggregators via apps on their mobile or website and the data shared will be at the complete discretion of the customers. 
• Currently, four apps are available for download with operational licenses to be Account aggregators and three more have received in-principle approval from RBI.
• As per the Ministry of Finance press release dated 10th September 2021, eight banks have already joined the AA network out of which four banks have already started sharing data based on consent.
• On the insurance front - ICICI Prudential Life Insurance is in talks for the onboarding of the Account Aggregator (AA) System and will be the first one to do this.
• Beshak Take: Various steps are being taken for digitization and we as a country are moving towards the digital front gradually. Account aggregator is one such step. It will improve the user experience and reduce the policy issuance time and make the life of both customers and insurers easy. The financial underwriting can also be done smoothly as the financial data will be available under one umbrella.

Source: The New Indian Express

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Investment News

• MFine, a 4-year-old healthcare startup platform, raised $48 Mn as a part of its series C round. 
• MFine is a Digital Health Platform that allows users to access comprehensive health packages, book routine lab tests, medicine delivery, and consult doctors via chat or video. As part of their product offering, the company is also looking to bring financial products with insurance partners in the upcoming months.
• The startup aims to use these funds to expand its hospital, diagnostics, and e-pharmacy network across the country and build tech-driven care delivery products for patients with both acute and chronic conditions. 

Source: Livemint

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• In a series A round, Loop Health, a Pune-based insurance startup that provides group health insurance to companies, raised $12 Mn.
• These funds will be used to increase the business as well as sales and drive strategic hiring in sales and engineering. 
• They will also be focussing on product development through custom insurance products and physical healthcare clinics.

Source: The Times of India

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