Cashless treatment is most sought after insurance benefit

The demand for health insurance is increasing on account of the rise in lifestyle diseases and the growing health care cost, said a study by GOQii, a tech-enabled healthcare platform.
According to the GOQii IndiFit Report 2019, titled “Insurance: An Investment in Health’, 85% of people believe they should get health insurance before the age of 30. Of those surveyed, 90% of people believe healthier people should get a lower insurance premium and 70% are willing to share health data with insurance companies to get a discount on premiums.
“Overall trust in the healthcare system has deteriorated further with 96.5% of people not trusting the system, with 67.8% of Indians not trusting hospitals. To add to this, the rising cost of healthcare has prompted Indians to focus more on health insurance. 62.8% of Indians believe having a health insurance policy is an absolute necessity and approximately,’’ the report said.
The report is a year-long study of more than 7 lakh GQii users. According to the report, despite increasing awareness about the importance and need for an insurance policy, 20% of the respondents don’t own an insurance policy. “The common notion that continues to prevail is that insurance is confusing to understand, a prime reason that discourages people from buying one. The high cost of insurance also deters them,’’ the report said.
Respondents strongly believed cashless hospitalisation (87.9%) is the most sought-after health insurance benefit followed by medical bills reimbursement facility (67.7%) and better treatment in best hospitals (59.0%), the report said.
Among the reasons people look at while buying a particular health insurance policy were good quality hospital network – 42.3% and easy claim procedures – 41.9%. Low cost, good coverage and benefits, simple terms and conditions are some of the other convincing factors for people to buy health insurance.
The report also said that 38.3% people between the age group of 20-45 years suffer from at least one lifestyle disease ranging from diabetes, blood pressure, cardiac issues to thyroid, and acidity.
There has been an increase of lifestyle diseases in the last two years. Cases of cholesterol among people have increased from 10.1% to 14.1%, high blood pressure has increased from 9% to 12%, the GOQii report said.