Health insurance firm taps Tier 2 biz

With a focus on tier II destinations such as Coimbatore, Trichy, Aurangabad and Indore, ABHI expects to break even within six years, its CEO Mayank Bathwal said, while announcing its retail foray in the fixed benefit product category.

From its footprint in 34 cities, 5 bancassurance partners and over 8,821 direct selling agents, ABHI is confident of reaching out to 100-plus locations in the country. “We are adopting a multi-distribution strategy as part of our group’s goal to be in the top five insurance players slot,” he said. The new entity is a 51:49 joint venture between MMI Strategic Investments, MMI Holdings (South Africa based financial services group), Adiya Birla Nuvo and ABHI.

Noting that the initial growth trajectory demonstrated good outcomes, he said ABHI’s assessment of market shows customers seeking services that go beyond hospitalisation. It is positioning itself as the “only health insurance company to offer protection for 64 major critical illnesses.” This is part of its retail strategy wherein four variants – critical illness, cancer secure, personal accident and hospital cash are covered. To encourage young customers to take up health cover, ABHI has introduced a key benefit – health return wherein 30 per cent of the premium is returned for healthy customers.” Bathwal said to give customers hassle-free experience, a virtual care manager will be available to help them.

As of now, 3,300 hospitals have been onboarded to ABHI’s network and by the year end, the company is hoping to reach the 4,500-mark, by adding 200 hospitals every month.