Govt urged to provide incentives for insurance
In order to ensure Macro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) continued success, the key imperatives are to ensure ease of doing business, infrastructure upgradation, skilling and ensuring workforce welfare, an industry report have revealed.
“The MSME sector of the country is highly under penetrated in terms of healthcare cover. Hence, this segment offers a great opportunity for the health insurance industry to expand its outreach and increase accessibility to affordable healthcare,” said G Srinivasan, Chairman of Health Insurance Committee at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
“The Indian economy is one of the fastest growing in the world and the success of MSMEs is critical for maintaining India’s growth story. A key aspect of this growth story would be providing quality healthcare access and social security coverage to the largely informal or unorganised workforce employed in this sector,” elaborated Shashwat Sharma, Partner and Head, Insurance, KPMG in India.
FICCI and KPMG in India have released a joint study covering 219 MSMEs across 15 manufacturing and services sectors. The report titled – “MSME group health insurance penetration in India” was launched on 18 Dec 2017 in New Delhi.
Key highlights from the survey:
Approximately 90 per cent MSMEs do not offer any financial aid for medical purposes to the families of employees;
Most micro and medium enterprises offer no financial support to their employees and their families;
MSMEs preferred a basic cover of personal accident and critical illness with a focus on a reduction in premiums and coverage of employees only; and
MSMEs primarily prefer to purchase insurance through broking channels and bancassurance, with group health insurance penetration through online channels at minimal level of about 6 per cent.
The officials called on the Government to play a pivotal role in setting up the healthcare infrastructure and incentivising group health cover adoption, the regulator could explore aspects around obligations of non-life insurers.
The insurance industry could explore policy customisation, innovations in servicing and cluster based communications drives. A concerted three way approach could go a long way in realising the ambition of providing healthcare coverage to a larger population base.
Supporting the calls, T S Vijayan, Chairman, Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has underscored the need to devise health insurance products that are simple and intelligible to the customers, provide coverage to the aged and infirm and those suffering from chronic ailments, bring down distribution costs and ensure that there is no profiteering to the detriment of the insured. fii-news.com
