Star Health eyes Rs 650cr premium in current fiscal

Plans to tap the West Asian market soon.

Chennai-based Star Health and Allied Insurance is planning to close the current fiscal with a premium income of Rs 650 crore. The health insurance company has also lined up plans to enter the West Asian market.

Speaking to Business Standard, company CMD V Jagannathan said between March 2008 and January 24, the company collected Rs 386 crore as premium income. It expects to collect another Rs 100 crore by the end of this month. Its average premium income on a daily basis is Rs 50-60 lakh.

On its international expansion, Jagannathan said, the Star Health was planning to open a liaison office in Dubai to focus on West Asia and target non-resident Indians.

Meanwhile, the company is awaiting the regulator’s nod to launch its new critical care policy. The product would comprise two sections. While one would cover major diseases including cancer and kidney, the other would be medical. Till now, insurers in the country were offering only one of these two, said Jagannathan.

Star Health currently has 1,236 marketing officers and would add another 500 by the end of this year. It has eight zonal offices, 18 administration offices and 104 branches with 1,753 employee and 4,000 network hospitals.

The company has also bagged insurance contracts from the Haryana and Andhra Pradesh governments. In Haryana, the scheme provides smart card-based cashless health insurance cover up to Rs 30,000 to all BPL families for five years.

The insurer gets Rs 15 crore as premium income from this scheme. In Andhra Pradesh too the scheme is targeted at BPL families and so far the company has insured 65 million people in the state, said Jagannathan.