Life Insurance Corporation of India is planning to enter the health insurance industry and is exploring likely purchases. This comes after a proposal for the insurance industry to embrace composite insurance business.
In February, it was proposed by a parliamentary panel that composite insurance licenses should be introduced in order to save costs and reduce regulatory compliance obligations for insurers as reported by The Times of India. Life insurers have as of now been restricted to offering only long-term health products. If these companies’ wished to include hospitalization as well as compensation insurance plans, then Insurance Act ought to be revised.
India’s insurance industry remains grossly underdeveloped to this day. At the close of the fiscal year 2022–2023, there have been only 55 crore individual’s health insurance policy, or less than 2.3 crores issued so far.
Out of these, Twenty crores were derived from the group insurance scheme while another thirty crores came from government initiated programs. It is a serious matter for the government and the regulatory bodies to expand the health cover with the likely entry of the LIC offering reinsurance expected to hasten this process.