Middle class India unprepared for rising health cost

When it comes to health insurance, how much you think is adequate? Chances are you have no idea, and hence you are under insured. BigDecisions.com, a personal finance advice platform today released their 2015 health research report that says middle class Indians are largely under insured for health insurance. The data shows that some 95% of the platform's users were not adequately insured, with 62% of the 10,000 users having less than 50% of required health cover.

“An increased appreciation of rapidly rising healthcare treatment costs does not seem to have translated into Indian consumers being better prepared. This is either because we, as consumers believe that we're a genetically healthy bunch or are unaware of just how expensive medical procedures have become,” says Manish Shah, co-founder and CEO of BigDecisions.

The key findings show: India has double digit medical inflation. On the other hand, health cover is not adequate, and even employers' health cover is insufficient in many cases, and individuals end up paying from their own pockets many a times. And, even though the premiums for health insurance have remained relatively stagnant, it has been mainly thanks to competition among the insurers.

According to the report: Over the last four years, premiums of most insurers have increased only once - in 2014 - over the previous year, reflecting a CAGR of 2.79% (for sum insured of Rs 2,00,000 and Rs 3,00,000) and 3.29% (for sum insured Rs 5,00,000 and Rs 10,00,00).

The report is based on a data from 10,000 consumers across eight major cities, aged 25 to 45+ and in the income bracket ranging from Rs 6 to 36 lakh annually.

Do you know if you and your family is adequately insured for your health. Keep tracking this space as we bring you a Video on how much medical insurance do I really need?