HDFC Life keen to re-enter health cover segment but not indemnity segment: CEO HDFC Life

It is advised that professionals in financial and legal, and financial advisors, such as insurance agents, accountants, mortgage brokers, and attorneys carry indemnity insurance.

“We’ll be looking at certain composite products that can be hawked as a one-in-all-product offering life, protection and local and overseas health covers etc. We will not be looking at all the products under the health space instead we will be comfortable offering niche products with multiple benefits,” Padalkar explained.

The beauty of a multi-offering product is that in the event of a fortunate death of the insured, the family need not run around from one insurer to another for each of the separate covers the diseased insured had.

However, she welcomed the proposal saying for health insurance too, allowing more players in the best way forward because, at 1 per cent of the GDP, this is way below the global average. Ideally, it should be 3 per cent of the GDP, she said.

However, it can be noted that health has the maximum penetration at close to 40 per cent—in 2022 it was 38 per cent with around 560 million health policies issued, thanks to the pandemic that has increased the awareness of health covers.

On the new Irdai rule on surrender value–which has massively increased the pay back even if the policy is only a few months old—Padalkar said this move will have a 100 bps impact on the margins as a whole.