Around 16 Million Households to Get Healthy with Citibank and Apollo Munich Offered Health Insurance Services

Citibank India, pronounced for being one of the prominent distributors of wealth management products in 2013, is now set to provide a complete suite of specialized health care solutions from Apollo Munich across rising affluent, affluent, high net-worth and non-resident Indians. Besides offering financial protection, the services will also provide health & lifestyle management support for non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, cancers and tumors. These NCDs have high occurrence in India and 50% of the occurrence has been recorded from upper middle class and rich strata.

India unfortunately is bearing a lot because of high occurrence rates of communicable diseases, along with a rising burden of chronic diseases. The sedentary lifestyles could be blamed for such turn of events. Add to the lifestyle, unpredictably long working hours and rising stress, which are making it impossible for us to take up healthy lifestyles. 

NCD management is one area to work on, apart from that, addressing increased levels of unfunded expenditure is what Citibank will be deeply involved in. As per McKinsey estimates country spends 4%of its GDP or approximately INR 3 trillion on its health concerns. Also, according to IRDA, India’s health insurance premium market grew by 16.57% to around INR 157 billion in FY12/13, which demonstrates that the level of penetration with reference to health expenditure is low.

The ability of consumers to spend enormously (around 61%) on their medical and health needs and close to 38% of emerging affluent not possessing health insurance, indicates the huge need to deliver this segment. Prosperity only allows consumers to spend greatly on healthcare services.

The healthcare demands of the majority of urban affluent and affluent segments are not met. Only 20% of the urban population is able to fulfill its needs through health insurance. Currently, there is no consolidated solution in the form of financial protection and health & lifestyle management. Citibank promises to provide that complete solution with its efficient distribution capabilities and wealth management experience, along with Apollo Munich’s unparalleled healthcare and health financing expertise. Together they can meet consumers’ dual demand of financial protection and health management.