By PTI

MUMBAI: Focus on traditional products and online sales has boosted the first quarter business of Aditya Birla Health Insurance by 73 per cent, and it hopes to continue to lead the industry growth during the current fiscal and reach break-even by the next fiscal, said a senior company official.

The four-year-old standalone health insurer collected Rs 245 crore in premium even during the coronavirus pandemic-inflicted June quarter, up 73 per cent over the previous year, the official said.

The industry growth stood at 16 per cent and pureplay health insurers’ growth rate at 27 per cent, he added.

The business was led by traditional products, while the focus on digital sales added the momentum during the lockdown months.

As much as 73 per cent of the premium income came from retail sales, its Chief Executive Officer Mayank Bathwal told PTI on Friday.

The Adtiya Birla group company closed the financial year 2020 with a premium income of Rs 872 crore.

“Thanks to our focused approach, our business continues to scale with significant improvement in the combined ratio at 132 as against 146 in the previous year. This would help us break-even next fiscal,” Bathwal said.

Attributing the massive uptick in business to digital focus, Bathwal said that as much as 98 per cent of sales and after-sales service are done digitally.

Even the sales agents mostly sell digital, which though does not mean online sales alone.

“We have a robust digital strategy which has ensured that 98 per cent of our business come through this route in the first quarter, up from 93 per cent as of March 2020. Digital renewals touched 92 per cent in the year against 65 per cent in the previous year,” Bathwal said.

The company also has a large bancassurance presence having tied up with nine banks, including HDFC Bank and Axis Bank.

Banccassurance brought as much as 66 per cent of retail sales as against 61 per cent last year.

On how the company are handling the pandemic, he said on the one hand, the firm has increased customer engagement by getting doctors regularly calling up customers in need and, on the other hand, the company has halved the waiting period for policy activation from 30 days.

He also said the company is among the first companies to launch COVID-19 policies.

 COVID-19 policies constituted only around seven per cent of the total sales in the quarter.