Still room for improvement….Arnab Mitra
Spectre of Uncertainty – The Hindustan Times – MaRS survey of India’s Best Medical Insurers reveals that overall, customer satisfaction levels aren’t very high, implying that all companies need to focus more on serving the customer
Spectre of Uncertainty – The Hindustan Times – MaRS survey of India’s Best Medical Insurers reveals that overall, customer satisfaction levels aren’t very high, implying that all companies need to focus more on serving the customer
Blame it on advertisements. Every medical insurer claims it is the best. And the truth is that almost every insurer does offer something that others do not. So, how do you decide which is the best for you? To help you make the choice, we bring you the most definitive answer the Hindustan Times-MaRS Survey of Indias Best Medical Insurers which rated 15 top insurers on customer satisfaction on settlement and satisfaction on customer servicing.
The first which included six parameters like claim settlement, TPA responsiveness, speed of service, delivery of promised services, etc., while the second included parameters like ease of product enquiry, levels of transparency, quality and spread of hospital network, attitude of company agents, clarity of diseases covered and excluded, etc.
A word of caution will be necessary here. The final results were very close meaning there isnt a lot separating the best from the rest.
Our survey shows that Tata AIG and ICICI Lombard are the (joint) highest ranked medical insurers on customer service, while Star Health & Allied Insurance Co. comes out on top in claim settlements.
But the leaders dont lead by a lot a few points more on one or two parameters and less on a few others could have altered the results quite dramatically. Another caveat overall, satisfaction levels arent very high, implying that all companies need to focus more on serving the customer.
Says Raghu Roy, managing director of MaRS, HTs knowledge partner for this survey: An industry average of 740 (out of a maximum possible score of 1,000) on claim settlement satisfaction is definitely not a great score. And that the highest score by any company is 765, only a few points above the industry average, also suggests that the claim settlement process may never make the customer fully satisfied. This is, perhaps, to be expected.
This scenario is repeated in satisfaction with customer servicing. Customers are not happy the industry average is 746 (out of a maximum possible score of 1,000). One fact stands out: that companies do not exhibit high differentials from each other on this measure.
An interesting finding is that the industry as a whole seems to be servicing customers better in Bangalore, Lucknow, Kolkata and Mumbai. Respondents in these cities gave the industry scores that are higher than the all-India average, both on customer satisfaction as well as satisfaction with claim settlements.
Bangalore is the only city to give scores of more than 800 on both these parameters (respondents gave scores of 811 on customer service and 810 on claim settlement).
Obviously, companies arent being able to replicate the Bangalore model elsewhere. This is most obvious in Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi and Ahmedabad, which gave the industry scores less than the national average.
One fact that stands out is that private insurers have stolen a clear march over their public sector counterparts. Except for Delhi, which ranked United India Insurance Co. first, none of the cities ranked any public sector insurer on top.
Clearly, every single company has a long way to go.
What makes National Insurance third best
TIME LAG – Experts say that claims settlement takes longer in NIC compared to its competitiors
TIME LAG – Experts say that claims settlement takes longer in NIC compared to its competitiors
In the HT-MaRS survey, customer satisfaction on customer servicing and interaction was measured using six parameters product enquiry stage, purchase transaction, policy issuance, hospital network, renewal, and transparency. And the public sector National Insurance Company (NIC) ranked third, coming after private sector Tata AIG and ICICI Lombard.
There was also that little matter about it being the only state-owned company to feature at all among the top five in terms of customer satisfaction. The survey was carried out among 2074 medical insurance policy holders in eight major cities of India Delhi, Lucknow, Kolkata, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
While industry analysts said that the insurer had resorted to reasonable pricing, which went in its favour, insurance sector experts pointed out that claims settlement takes longer in NIC compared to its competitors, which might explain the third position.
It takes about one to one-and-a-half months for settlement of claims in NIC, said a leading third party administrator (TPA), on conditions of anonymity.
So what can public sector insurers do to get better in the area of customer satisfaction?
The four PSU insurers National Insurance Company, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and United India Insurance which together manage about R6,000 crore of health insurance business, complain about being saddled with a commercially unviable claims settlement ratio of 115%. They have to say that the way TPAs function also has a major bearing on customer satisfaction, and forming a common TPA is one way of cutting down on costs.
The four state-owned general insurance companies are looking to engage a third party administrator to ensure that customers are not put through any major trouble especially when we have no health regulator, the process is on track and we hope to have one soon, said NIC chairman and managing director NSR Chandra Prasad.
TPAs are intermediaries between patients and insurance firms. Typically stationed at hospitals, TPAs take care of the administrative process of mediclaim policies. This arrangement will provide economies of scale to the four insurers, said Prasad. NIC has set a claim settlement target for 2010-11 at 90%. And as Prasad lets in, We are focused on customer service more than profits and business models.
As Amit Mitra, secretary general of industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry puts it, The emphasis has to be on consumer awareness and satisfaction, provision of quality health care, improved insurance services and greater collaboration and trust between insurers and healthcare providers.