About the Health Insurance Industry –
While the current market sees more than 15 non-life players in the private space and 5 exclusive private players in the health insurance space trying to capture a sizable market share, the nationalized service provider (6) remains a strong competitor. In addition to this the business dynamics are such that the overall market on an annual basis which is to the tune of roughly 10,000 Crs sees close to 85 % of the business renewing with the existing service provider itself. This narrows down the opportunity of the fresh business actually being seriously fought in the market to approximately 1500 odd Crs. With the SME and the start-ups being the driving force of Indian economy, the opportunity to cater to these segments is immense and is increasing manifold year on year. The challenge here therefore remains as to how we capture a larger share of the opportunity by developing specific solutions to cater each segment of the business. Also by creating an inexpensive and standardized solution to increase the reach into the pockets of channel partners across the country to harness on their captive business and explore new opportunities with them.
Market Opportunities – With the advent of medical advancements, lifestyle changes, change in Indian socio-economic scenario and Indian healthcare space, and the insurers are facing challenges to cater to the needs of this diverse clientele. Increasingly Indian customers have started considering health insurance partners as extensions of health advisers. In this scenario it becomes extremely important to understand their psyche and then provide tailored solutions with wellness benefits which would help them meet their end objectives and bring in profitable revenue source for the company.
About the Aditya Birla Health Insurance –
Aditya Birla Health Insurance Co. Limited (ABHICL) was incorporated in 2015 as a 51:49 joint venture between Aditya Birla Capital Limited (ABCL) and MMI Strategic Investments (Pty) Ltd. ABHICL commenced its operations in October 2016.
ABHICL has entered the competitive health insurance market with an aim to expand the category to wider customer segments, beyond the ones that health insurance companies traditionally have marketed to. As the 6th entrant in a category with well-established players, ABHICL is creating differentiation and equity for itself though the unique business proposition of “Health Insurance for All”, a one of a kind proposition in India at the moment. This is a philosophy that is being built through every single consumer touch point and into every single backend process of the company to ensure a customer’s experience of our proposition is continuous and seamless.
ABHI’s unique offering to market includes proposition includes -
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A Comprehensive Incentivized Wellness Program that will attract the young and health conscious and will motivate, guide and reward them to stay healthy
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A Chronic Care Management Program to cater to the unmet needs of a growing Indian population of those suffering from chronic lifestyle conditions like Diabetes, Asthma, High Cholesterol and Hypertension from Day 1
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ABHICL serves as an enabler and influencer of health and healthcare choices that customers make, in addition to being a payer of healthcare expenses. Thus, ABHICL would act like a much needed catalyst to grow the prevalent health insurance landscape in India through product innovations and a wider choice of consumer relevant products.
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ABHICL’s vision has always been digital. The company has been successful in adopting paper-less approach right from identifying to on-boarding to delivering seamless experience of its customers & employees.
Challenges
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Changing Customer’s perception of value proposition - Our CVP such as Incentivized wellness and chronic care management program requires continuous communication and engagement with our customers and distributors.
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Distribution scale-up: Distribution Readiness: Considering the comprehensiveness of our offerings, Distribution engagement and sales training across channels is required to be more rigorous.
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Distribution Costs: Third party distribution costs have also been higher than estimated originally which may impact economics due to intense competition in bancassurance segment.
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Traditional ecosystem – The current Health Insurance Industry ecosystem incl. hospitals and diagnostic centers are taking time for being fully oriented to our model. We are addressing this with continued engagement. Extensive partnerships with the new age tech based providers for digitized delivery model are being explored
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Driving profitability–various segments / lines of business
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Opportunities –
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Health Insurance sector offers tremendous potential due to inadequate penetration as only 3% of the retail population is covered. As awareness levels increase, it would simulate demand for insurance products. This would provide significant opportunity to create multi-distributions channels and diversifying product mix. Balancing growth and profitability will be key going forward as the industry continues to grow at a higher rate/
Role holders Knowhow & expertise
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Excellent analytical and communication skills is one of the key imperative for the role.
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Ability to strategize, conceptualize and present /communicate to various stakeholders will be the key.
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Data warehousing concept and data model concept
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Financial modelling and valuation and business model and macroeconomics and industry understanding
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Knowledge of BI tool and financial systems
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Network skills for competitor intelligence
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Key Challenges for the role –
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Build a sustainable, scalable as well as realistic Business plan in view of the dynamic & changing business environment.
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Managing conflict between financial and business objectives
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To Automate the financial model and planning process to improve flexibility, data integrity and reduce timelines, the data input framework need to be aligned such that analytics can be run on the valid data that goes into the system. Currently there is no such monitoring technique available.
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Work closely with sales and operations to educate and create awareness around various KPIs and integrate them into their business monitoring and compensation. Sales focused without losing cost/finance objectives
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Competitive benchmarking: Building credible competitive intelligence and using it for strategic decision making; Poor availability of data on competition KPIs with regards to Operational TATs, Unit Costs, SLAs, complaints in public domain.
