Aditya Birla Health Insurance aims to break-even by FY23

Aditya Birla Health Insurance is targeting to break-even by fiscal year 2022-23 by focusing more on the retail segment, a top official has said.

The company, a part of the diversified conglomerate Aditya Birla Group, is also aiming to enter the list of companies offering services under the Government's Ayushman Bharat scheme by second half of the next fiscal.

"Usually, it takes up to 7 years for an insurance company to break- even after high investments in the beginning. We plan to do it in 5-6 years, by FY23," Aditya Birla Health Insurance chief executive Mayank Bathwal told PTI over phone.

He said the company is focusing on the more profitable retail segment for its growth and expects to add up to 1 million customers per year, which will make it possible for the company to achieve the goal.

The company reported a premium collection of Rs 500 crore in FY19, and aims to achieve break-even in the next three years, once the premium collection rises to Rs 1,700-2,000 crore.

Its premium collections grew 100 percent in FY19, on the back of a 400 percent growth in the retail segment, he said.

In FY19, the company was successful in reversing the mix of policies between retail and group, Bathwal said and added that retail now accounts for 65 percent of the overall policies while the remaining is on the group front, where companies face pricing pressure as clients negotiate collectively.

By end of FY20, it is targeting to increase the component of retail to 70 percent, Bathwal said.

He claimed the company pioneered the use of wearable devices in the Indian insurance space and added that 30 percent of its policy holders reduced their insurance premiums through sharing of data showing their seriousness towards health.

Under the digitally enabled health insurance plan, insurance companies track users' behaviours and offer discounts to those who lead healthier lives.

The retail growth is being achieved through the bancassurance tie-ups, he said, but, did not comment on how the tie-up with the group's payments bank business will play out.

At present, over 50 percent of the business flows through banks, he said.

On the Ayushman scheme, he said only those companies which complete three years in operations can get into serving the citizens and added that it will get eligible in October 2019 and would like to enter the fray given the size and scale of the scheme.