Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India has published its Annual report on 8th January,2015. Based on this report I have listed down the best Health Insurance and Motor Insurance Companies in India. The criteria for selection is Incurred Claims Ratio ( this can be compared with Claim Settlement Ratio of Life Insurance).
What is Incurred Claims Ratio (ICR)?
ICR is net incurred claims to net earned premium. For Non-Life insurance, the Incurred Claims ratio (or Incurred Loss Ratio) is the ratio of total losses incurred (paid and reserved) in claims plus adjustment expenses divided by the total premiums earned. As an example a 70 percent incurred claims ratio means that for every Rs 1000 of premium earned in a given accounting period, Rs 700 is paid back in the form of benefits (claims). So, Incurred Claim ratio is the ratio of the claims settled to the premium received.
Non-Life Insurance companies provide products under various segments like Motor, Health, Home, Personal Accident, Travel, Marine and other types of Insurances. I have selected only two segments for analysis purpose. They are Health and Motor Insurances.
Best Health Insurance Companies Based on Incurred Claims ratio (2013-14)
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As per above table you can see all Public Sector Non-Life companies (except New India Assurance) have more than 100% Incurred Claims Ratio. That means they are good at claim settlement but this may have serious impact on their profitability. Generally they cover up the losses from one segment (Health insurance) with other business segments. Because of high ICR most of the non-life insurance companies are requesting IRDA to consider hiking the health insurance premiums to sustain profitability.
Non-Life Private Insurance Companies like ICICI Lombard, HDFC Ergo, L& T and Reliance have claims ratio of more than 90%.
Private Insurance companies have total incurred claims ratio of 87.62% when compared to public sector player’s 106.19%.
(You may like reading – ‘Best Life Insurance Companies in India 2016 & Latest Incurred Claims Ratio 2014-15 data’)
Best Motor Insurance Companies Based on Incurred Claims ratio (2013-14)
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As per above table New India Assurance has Incurred Claim Ratio of 86.83% which is the highest among the public sector companies.
HDFC Ergo, Reliance and Shriram have ICR of more than 90%. Private Insurance companies have total incurred claims ratio of 81.40% when compared to public sector player’s 77.51% (with respect Motor insurance segment).
Generally Life insurance policy premiums remain same through out the policy tenures. Whereas non-life insurance premiums of health or motor insurance policies may change on a yearly basis. In the last few years you might have noticed that the insurance premiums on your health insurance policies might have increased drastically.
The insurance underwrites look at these claim incurred ratios and re-calculate the premiums on the policy renewals.
Hope this post in informative. Do share your comments or queries. Cheers!
((Image courtesy of digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)
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Dear Mr. Sreekanth,
Good Afternoon!
Recently my mom got admitted due to heart disease. My mother has personal medicalim with National Insurance. I found so many deduction in her claim mostly for ICU charge, Nursing charge beyond 2% of SI & CB. Also deduction made for RMO/Doctor like that.
I would like to get advice from you regarding 2 points.
1) Does these deductions which made by TPA are obvious in all health insurance? If not how to select insurance where deductions will be low.
2) Do you advice to take paid health insurance broker who can work for me to get less deduction in insurance. If yes can you pls adviceany insurance broker based out Kolkata,
With Warm Regards,
Suman
Dear Suman,
1 – Do you mean by low sub-limits? You can consider plans which do not have any sub-limits.
Kindly read:
Best portals to compare health plans.
Evaluate these factors when buying a health plan.
Best Health insurance Plans for parents.
Hi sreekanth,
Can you please suggest me a good health insurance policy for me and my family, i have a health insurance which is provided by my company for me and my wife its about 3 lakhs . now i just wanted to purchase a personal health insurance policy which covers my parents too….
my self 30yrs old and i am a diabetic
my wife 28yrs old
my father 60yrs old
my mother-in-law 55yrs old diabetic.
kindly suggest me whether shall i go for a family floater or individual for me and my mother-in-law and suggest me available plans too
thanks in advance
Dear raghavendra,
You may consider below suggestions;
Father : Individual mediclaim policy. Kindly read: Best Health insurance plans for Senior citizens or Elderly parents.
Mother in Law : Can consider Diabetic specific health plan offered by Apollo Munich / Star health / Max Life.
Self : Can consider Diabetic specific health plan offered by Apollo Munich / Star health / Max Life.
Spouse : Can consider stand-alone mediclaim policy.
You may find below articles useful;
Best portals to compare Health insurance plans.
Important factors that need to be kept in mind when buying health insurance plans.
Hi Sreekanth,
Thanks for your response and can you please suggest me a plan which covers maternity benefit from day one instead of waiting period or which having less waiting period(2 years).
Thanks
raghavendra
Dear raghavendra,
Most of the health insurance plans are very stringent with respect to waiting period ( generally 3 years to 5 years) for claiming maternity related expenses.
Kindly check out Religare Joy Plan – It has 9 months of waiting period for claims related to maternity. (This is maternity specific plan).
Cigna TTK’s Pro Health Premier has waiting period of 2 years.
(health insurance with no or less waiting period for maternity )