Insurance companies settled over 2.25 lakh death claims up to March 2022, on account of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has said in its annual report released recently.
It said that general insurers and stand-alone health insurers received a huge number of COVID treatment related claims which the industry handled quite efficiently and settled claims approximating to Rs 25,000 crore.
In case of individual life insurance business, the life industry’s death claim settlement ratio increased to 98.64 per cent in 2021-22 from 98.39 per cent in the previous year, and the repudiation/rejection ratio decreased to 1.02 per cent from 1.14 per cent, the report said.
“In case of group life insurance business, life insurance companies settled 98.77 per cent claims during 2021-22 against 98.62 per cent in the previous year,” the report said.
According to the data available in the report, a total of 2.65 million (2,654,001) health insurance claims were settled. Insurance companies settled over 2.25 lakh death claims on account the pandemic and paid Rs 17,269 crore towards claims up to March 31, 2022, according to IRDAI.
The life insurance industry paid around 73.1 per cent of the net premium, which is Rs 5.02 lakh crore in 2021-22.
The country’s largest life insurer, the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India accounted for 70.39 per cent of total benefits paid, with private insurers accounting for the remaining 29.61 per cent.
General and health insurers settled 2.19 crore health insurance claims and paid Rs 69,498 crore towards settlement of the claims. The average amount paid per claim was Rs 31,804.
The report further said that the net incurred claims of the general insurers increased by 26 per cent in 2021-22, which is Rs 1.41 lakh crore in 2021-22 as against Rs 1.12 lakh crore in 2020-21.
When the pandemic spread into India, the IRDAI directed all life and health insurance companies to expedite the claim settlement process across their policies.
According to the IRDAI annual report 2020-2021, the sector received 21,836 claims between April 2020 and March 2021, of which 21,304 claims were paid. This included claims settled under the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Beema Yojana, which offers a life cover of Rs 2 lakh.M
