India: COVID-19 claims accelerate
Source: Asia Insurance Review | Jun 2021
Non-life insurers are seeing a sharp spike in claims, in the wake of higher COVID-19 infection rates in the country, a situation that could impact their balance sheets if the trend continues.
Health insurance claims related to COVID-19 reported in the six weeks between 1 April 2021 and 14 May were 57% of the claims filed in the full year ended March 2021 (FY21), according to a report in Times of India.
As of 31 March, non-life companies including health insurers received 980,000 claims totalling INR145.6bn ($2bn) for COVID-19. The claims rose to 1.48m as of 14 May for a total value of INR229.55bn. This means that in the first 44 days of the new fiscal year that started on 1 April, COVID-19 claims amounted to INR83.85bn which is 57% of the pandemic-related claims for FY21.
The New India Assurance chairman and managing director Atul Sahai said, “Last year, though we had claims, we were not worried about the impact on the balance sheet. This year, it could reach a point where it does.”
He added that although the rising COVID cases were resulting in losses on the policies, public-sector insurers are not looking at revising their prices. A