Indian health insurers are increasing the use of personalised product features and preventive health services, supported by digital tools, data analytics, and modular plan designs, according to a new Policybazaar report released around World Health Day. The report says carriers are adding regular check-ups, wellness programmes, and fitness-linked incentives into policies, while adjusting benefits and pricing to reflect age, health status, and lifestyle risk.
Policybazaar said many insurers are seeking to move beyond a narrow indemnity role centred on hospital bills and large claims. They are positioning health covers to be used more frequently for everyday health needs, with benefits tied to earlier diagnosis and ongoing monitoring. The report lists preventive features such as scheduled health screenings bundled with policies, wellness programmes linked to behaviour such as exercise or diet, and incentives that offer premium credits or extra benefits when policyholders meet agreed health targets. Wearables and health apps are being used to track activity and support more frequent touchpoints between the insurer, intermediary, and customer.
Siddharth Singhal, head of health insurance at Policybazaar, said the sector is undergoing a reset in how products are defined and perceived. “Health insurance in India is undergoing a fundamental shift – from being a reactive financial product to becoming a proactive health partner,” he said, as reported by Business Standard. He added that features like first‑day coverage, shorter waiting periods for pre‑existing diseases and disease‑specific plans are “breaking long-standing barriers that once kept people away from insurance.”
The report notes that standardised individual and family floater plans are gradually being replaced or supplemented by more configurable structures. Insurers are segmenting customers by age and life stage, pre-existing conditions, and lifestyle indicators and using those segments as the basis for plan design and underwriting. This has led to modular arrangements in which a core hospitalisation benefit is combined with optional add-ons.
Common add-ons include outpatient department (OPD) and day-to-day care benefits, consumables cover, global treatment access, and air ambulance services. Policyholders can add or remove these elements at specified times, so coverage can be adjusted when health status or family composition changes. On the operational side, Policybazaar points to increased use of digital processes such as instant policy issuance, AI-led underwriting, real-time claims tracking, and paperless settlements.
According to the report, the scope of benefits in newer products is broadening beyond inpatient hospitalisation. Policies are more likely to include telemedicine and virtual consultations, home health care services, mental health treatment, and AYUSH-based therapies. Insurers are presenting these benefits as part of an approach that allows cover to be used for earlier-stage and ongoing care, not only for acute episodes requiring admission. This raises questions about claim frequency, provider behaviour, and pricing models for benefits that may generate more frequent but smaller claims. To address concerns about out-of-pocket spending, insurers are offering plan features such as zero co-payment options, no room rent limits, unlimited restoration of the sum insured, higher no-claim bonuses, and wellness-linked rewards. These designs are intended to reduce the risk of unexpected shortfalls at the time of claim, but they also require close tracking of loss ratios and capital needs as utilisation patterns develop.
The Policybazaar findings sit against a backdrop of strong premium growth and regulatory changes in early 2026, as well as rising demand from non-resident Indians (NRIs) for India-issued health policies. Data cited by Angel One show that health insurance premiums in India increased 27.17% year on year in January 2026 to ₹5,414.54 crore. General insurers reported health premiums of ₹2,187.98 crore, up 20.4% from a year earlier, while standalone health insurers recorded 32.3% growth to ₹3,226.56 crore, pointing to a higher share for specialist health carriers.
One factor behind the growth is the goods and services tax (GST) rationalisation that took effect in January 2026, cutting the rate on specified individual retail health policies from 18% to 5%. Market participants link the lower rate to increased new business and upgrades in the retail segment. Government-supported schemes remain significant, with gross written premium from these programmes rising to ₹2,480 crore in January 2026 from ₹1,800 crore a year earlier, reflecting continued implementation of Ayushman Bharat and other public initiatives. At the same time, NRIs are becoming a more prominent customer group for India-based health cover. Policybazaar reports that NRI purchases of Indian health insurance rose 126% year on year, supported by digital distribution, regulatory and tax developments, and price differences between Indian and overseas healthcare systems.
Family floater policies now account for about 70% of NRI purchases, compared with around 20% a year earlier, and average sums insured exceed ₹25 lakh. Policies bought specifically for parents in India have increased from 32% to 60% of NRI-originated business, signalling greater focus on coverage for older relatives whose care is managed from abroad. OPD benefits are also being added more often, with adoption rising from 7% to 20%, as families use health insurance for consultations, diagnostics, and pharmacy costs as well as hospitalisation, particularly in the context of chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.
