Demand for health insurance in India shot up by 321% post-COVID, with Star Health, Max Bupa, Aditya Birla, HDFC Ergo, and Acko dominating the leading five searched and sought-after insurance brands, according to the latest Just Dial Consumer Insights released recently.
The report suggests that while searches during the April-May-June’22 quarter shot up three times year-on-year (YoY), the quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth was at 252% with Tier-I cities dominating almost 61% of the demand for health insurance.
Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai were the three leading Tier-I cities with maximum demand for health insurance. Among Tier-II cities, Coimbatore, Chandigarh and Jaipur were the leading three with maximum demand for brands like Star Health, Max Bupa, Aditya Birla, HDFC Ergo and Acko.
Besides health insurance, demand for international travel insurance also saw a significant surge of 44% QoQ, riding on the wave of international travel boom by Indian travellers. The most sought-after insurance providers were Bajaj Allianz, Tata AIG, IFFCO Tokio, New India Assurance and Religare.
Most of this demand for travel insurance came from Tier-I cities that witnessed a growth of 28% (QoQ) while in Tier-II cities, the demand rose by a relatively lower 18%. Delhi saw the maximum demand during the summer holidays that catapulted to a surge of 282% for travel insurance, followed by Mumbai and Bengaluru. Among Tier-II cities, Chandigarh saw maximum demand with Coimbatore, Surat, Vellore and Indore, following suit.
Demand for car insurance has also been growing steadily across the country with Acko, Go Digit, Bajaj Allianz, ICICI Lombard and Tata AIG being the five most searched insurance brands.
Just Dial is among India’s leading hyper local search engine. The study, done on the basis of the search data that the platform has received, presented in a comparative study, compare the shift in demand during specific timelines. The overall traffic on Just Dial’s platform (Quarterly Unique Visitors) in 4Q-FY22 stood at 144.8 million users, according to a release.
“After COVID, we have been witnessing a surge in demand for health insurance on the platform. The impact of COVID has accelerated the penetration of health insurance in Tier-II towns and cities as well and we are witnessing a higher growth rate vis-à-vis Tier-I. There seems to be a strong trend of health consciousness and awareness across Tier II cities, and we foresee this to pick up further momentum in the days to come”Prasun KumarCMO, Just Dial
Speaking about the search trends, Just Dial CMO Prasun Kumar said: “After COVID, we have been witnessing a surge in demand for health insurance on the platform. The impact of COVID has accelerated the penetration of health insurance in Tier-II towns and cities as well and we are witnessing a higher growth rate vis-à-vis Tier-I. There seems to be a strong trend of health consciousness and awareness across Tier II cities, and we foresee this to pick up further momentum in the days to come. Our data suggests that demand (YOY) growth rate for insurance in Tier-I cities grew 3 times and in Tier-II, it was 5.7 times.”
