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General insurance companies have made a representation to the Finance Ministry and the IRDA, the insurance regulator, to reconsider its decision on standalone health insurance companies using their agents to sell health insurance policies.
A senior official from a public sector general insurance company said, “We invest in the recruitment and training of the agent and feel it is unfair that standalone health insurers who we compete with utilise them to sell their health insurance products without any additional requirement. We have asked the regulator to provide a level-playing field.”
“We are at a disadvantage as the agent is working for a company which is a competitor in health insurance products,” said the official.
In a bid to boost the penetration of health insurance, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, in February 2013, allowed standalone health insurance companies to use the agents of general insurance and life insurance companies to distribute health insurance products.
‘Yet to decide’A senior IRDA official said, “We had allowed standalone health insurers to utilise the agents of general and life insurance companies to make it viable and improve the spread of health insurance, as they operate in only one line of business. However, we have received the representation from the general insurance companies and we are yet to decide on it.”
According to industry officials, the issue of non-level playing field in distribution was taken up in the meeting of the Finance Minister with the insurance industry last month.
At present, there are five standalone health insurers — Star Health, Max Bupa, Apollo Munich, Religare Health Insurance and Cigna TTK — which exclusively sell health insurance products.
According to data from the IRDA, health insurance, which is currently a ₹17,0000-crore market, has been one of the fastest-growing categories for general insurers, logging a 13.5 per cent growth in FY 2013-14.
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