Best Health Insurance Companies in India

When you go out to buy something, you naturally want to know what the best is. Often times “best” depends on what is important to you. Insurance is no different. While price is important you would also like to know about the customer service of the insurers and claims payment speed. Before you buy you will want to compare health insurance plans across a range of parameters and not just price. In this blog I give you three parameters on which to judge the insurance companies and finally a rating combining all three.

In order to arrive at the best health insurance companies we look at three parameters:

1. Claims Payment speed
2. Complaints
3. Market Share

We look at last three full years’ data for each of the insurers. We then combine these three into one single rating that tells us how the insurers are doing across all these parameters.

Claims Payment Speed

Let’s start with Claims payment speed. To judge this, we look at what percentage of claims an insurer settles within 30 days to the claims being lodged.

Insurer	Percentage Claims Settled in 30 days
ICICI Lombard	99%
Cholamandalam	99%
Religare Health	95%
Bharti AXA	84%
TATA AIG	82%
Apollo Munich	79%
Future Generali	74%
Max BUPA	71%
HDFC ERGO	69%
Star Health	64%
Bajaj Allianz	57%
Royal Sundaram Alliance	52%
Universal Sompo	50%
SBI General	44%
Oriental Insurance	42%
IFFCO TOKIO	39%
National Insurance	29%
United India	23%
New India Assurance	18%
L&T General	15%
Reliance General	14%

Complaints

Most of us may not write a good review if we are happy but we will surely complain if there is an issue. I would treat lack of complaints as a positive for Insurers. Here is how Insurers fare on the complaints front.

Insurer	Complaints per 10000 Claims
ICICI Lombard	2
Religare Health	10.31
Reliance General	10.85
Bajaj Allianz	11
Oriental Insurance	12.69
L&T General	14
New India Assurance	15.14
HDFC ERGO	16.37
United India	18.25
Max BUPA	19.47
Royal Sundaram Alliance	20.84
TATA AIG	25.44
Star Health	29.58
National Insurance	31.22
Cholamandalam	41
SBI General	48.75
Apollo Munich	48.8
Universal Sompo	75
IFFCO TOKIO	78.44
Bharti AXA	85
Future Generali	130.96

 Market Share

Finally let’s look at market share. This tells how many customers are paying good money on these products, and how widespread the network of each insurer is.

Insurer	MarketShare
New India Assurance	19.25%
National Insurance	17.47%
United India	15.40%
Oriental Insurance	9.94%
ICICI Lombard	8.61%
Star Health	6.13%
Bajaj Allianz	3.83%
Apollo Munich	3.82%
HDFC ERGO	3.40%
Reliance General	2.53%
Max BUPA	1.79%
IFFCO TOKIO	1.64%
Royal Sundaram Alliance	1.23%
Cholamandalam	1.13%
Bharti AXA	0.95%
Religare Health	0.87%
Future Generali	0.70%
Universal Sompo	0.50%
TATA AIG	0.41%
L&T General	0.27%
SBI General	0.12%

Overall Ratings

Finally let’s look at overall rating. This rating is arrived at by combining all the above parameters into one. Overall Health Insurer ratings in India reflect how insurers are doing across a range of parameters. This is based on data over the last three years.

Insurer	Overall Rating (out of 10)
ICICI Lombard	9.14
Religare Health	8.55
New India Assurance	8.16
HDFC ERGO	7.76
Oriental Insurance	7.75
L&T General	7.45
Bajaj Allianz	7.44
Cholamandalam	7.26
Star Health	7.17
United India	7.06
TATA AIG	6.99
Reliance General	6.86
National Insurance	6.73
Max BUPA	6.71
Royal Sundaram Alliance	6.32
Bharti AXA	5.65
Apollo Munich	5.53
Universal Sompo	5.2
Future Generali	4.86
SBI General	4.8
IFFCO TOKIO	3.3

While price is an important factor is any buying decision, it is important that you select an insurer that has a good service track record. If the insurer is not going to be around when you need them the most any money you pay in premium is a waste.