Indian insurance industry news : IDBI Bank and standalone health insurer (SAHI) Max Bupa entered into a bancassurance corporate agency agreement under which the latter will offer its health insurance solutions to the bank’s customer base across India.

The partnership will see Max Bupa provide a variety of health insurance products and digital first propositions, customized for 20 million customers of IDBI Bank spread across its more than 1800 branches in the country.

Rakesh Sharma – MD & CEO of IDBI Bank said, “At IDBI, we have always strived to understand the needs of our customers and offer solutions that fulfill all their financial requirements. Our alliance with Max Bupa is a result of growing customer demand to have best in class health insurance products, and through our collaboration with Max Bupa we will be able to offer customer-centric digitally enabled health insurance products to our customers.

“IDBI Bank is giving more focus to increase the Fee Income through Third Party distribution. This tie-up is a step in that direction.”

The health insurance products to be offered through the partnership include IDBI Max Bupa Suvidha Health Plus, IDBI Max Bupa Sehat Suraksha, and IDBI Max Bupa Loan Secure.

Max Bupa will offer IDBI Bank customers preauthorization of cashless claims in less than 30 minutes and also access to ‘Point of Care’ desks at major hospital chains in India among other services through the partnership.

Ashish Mehrotra – MD & CEO of Max Bupa said: “Health insurance as a category in India is still nascent with penetration levels at merely 27% and needs a huge push from health insurers like us to create awareness and make quality health insurance solutions easily accessible to consumers. Max Bupa is geared towards expanding its pan India presence to ensure more and more customers have access to our products, and the bancassurance arrangement with IDBI Bank is a significant step in this direction.”

Under the bancassurance partnership, Max Bupa has also agreed to design a digital ecosystem for the customers of IDBI Bank to improve their overall experience. In this connection, the health insurer will install the digital platform ‘Infinity’ that integrates with the IDBI Bank’s systems to facilitate a seamless buying experience for all customers.

Through the Infinity digital platform, customers of IDBI Bank can instantly buy the product they want and at the bank branch itself can access their policy documents.

Max Bupa will also install its AnyTimeHealth (ATH) machines, a fully automated, technology-based model which enables customers to get health assessment and purchase a policy instantly within three minutes at various branches of IDBI Bank in India.

  Ashish Mehrotra, Health insurance, IDBI Bank, India, Insurance industry news, Max Bupa, Rakesh Sharma