India's Sbi Life Insurance Moves Into Health Insurance Market

India's SBI Life Insurance has announced a foray into the health insurance segment with the launch of its 'Hospital Cash' plan, which provides a fixed daily allowance to policyholders for each day of hospitalisation.

The Hospital Cash plan guards against the erosion of policyholders' accumulated savings on account of medical bills by providing a fixed daily allowance to the insured person for every day of hospitalisation, irrespective of the hospital bill amount, SBI Life said in a statement.

"Our foray into health insurance is aimed at addressing the issues of rising healthcare costs and acute under-penetration of health insurance in India," SBI Life MD & CEO M N Rao said.

The plan is available for a fixed policy term of three years and offers the flexibility of premium payment options, with collection on a yearly, half-yearly or quarterly basis. The cover can be renewed till the age of 75 years.

Hospital Cash's Daily Hospitalisation Cash Benefit (DHCB) provides policyholders with a 100 per cent fixed payout from the first day of hospitalisation without any deductions.

Furthermore, in case the insured person is admitted into an ICU, the amount receivable by the policyholder is twice that of the DHCB.

An additional fixed lumpsum of Rs 10,000 (US$218) is payable to policyholders covering two or more family members under the plan in case the insured person is admitted to the ICU.

The product would also be made available for subscription online.

SBI Life has a market share of 21.6 per cent among the private life insurers and a total market share of 6 per cent.

SBI Life Insurance is a joint venture between State Bank of India and BNP Paribas. SBI owns 74 per cent of the total capital and the remaining 26 per cent is with BNP Paribas. SBI Life Insurance has an authorised capital of Rs 2,000 crore and a paid-up capital of Rs 1,000 crore.