To simplify and empower quicker decision-making, Mint in association with Beshak.org, an unbiased insurance discovery platform presents Mint Beshak Insurance Ratings. This rating zooms into the most essential aspects of insurance plans blurring out the frills to present a refreshed version 3.0 of our erstwhile Mediclaim rating.
Based on feedback from Mint readers, this time we have boiled it down to top 5 health insurance plans for people below 65. A concise list can help customers make better comparisons. Those interested in Beshak.org’s detailed rankings can visit the link here.
Here’s a detailed note on the methodology followed for rating insurance plans.
Overall Rating
Mint Beshak Insurance Rating – Health Insurance is a blended measure of product and claims experience track record of insurance companies.
In the health insurance rating, we basically measure the product promises (in the form of product benefits) and the delivery track record (in the form of claims track record) of each health insurance plan offe.red online by insurance companies.
The final Mint Beshak Health Insurance rating of a plan is done after applying the following weights:
1.1 Product Rating:
Under Product Rating, the following core cover and condition parameters under health insurance are scored (out of five) by a relative scoring method, post which the following weights are applied to factor the importance of each of these sub-parameters.
Parameters are selected based on the core impact they are likely to make on actual hospitalization claims in the long run for individuals and families.
1.2 Claims Track Record Rating:
Under Claims Track Record Rating, insurers are rated on the relative scoring and weights of the following important parameters captured under various public disclosures of the last quarter and across the last 5 financial years. These parameters measure the experience insurers have provided in the past to their customers.
2. Premium Affordability Rating:
Premium affordability is an important independent measure for customers to do an objective cost-benefit analysis before customers make a final choice on the product. An independent affordability rating helps compare the value offered by a product (through product and experience) against the pricing.
Based on our research, the median age of customers buying health insurance is 30 years.
We measure the relative affordability of the plans on a like-to-like basis for the following standard requirements.
Age : 30 Years
Type of Policy : Floater
Family Construct : Self + Spouse + 1 Kid
Cover : Rs. 10 Lakhs
NOTES:
The following points must be noted when you are reading the above rating and methodology:
1. For calculating the ratings, we have aggregated data from the products brochures, policy wordings, prospectus on respective insurance company’s website.
2. The claims data has been taken from public disclosures of insurers spanning from FY 2019 to FY 2023, as well as Q1, FY 2024.
3. The rating has been calculated based on product benefits, conditions available as on 15th October 2023. Any modifications on the product after 15th October 2023 have not been included. These will be considered in the coming financial quarter.
4. The study has used relative scoring (values across each parameter are relatively compared across insurers and converted into a relative score) to rate various sub-parameters.
5. The cumulative score for a parameter has been calculated using weighted average of all sub-parameters. The weights used are based on the impact of the specific sub-parameter on the risk being covered.
6. IRDAI had made it mandatory for every insurance company to offer Modern Treatment benefits. In case any insurance company has not mentioned specifically that they cover this and they have not defined any sub-limits for every treatment, we have considered that all modern treatment procedures are covered without any sub-limits.
7. The sorting of products for ratings is based on two places of decimal.
8. In Acko’s Standard Health Plan, we have considered their Inflation Protection benefit instead of the No Claim Bonus Benefit.
9. Premium Affordability:
a.Premium is not a part of overall Product Ratings. It has been decoupled from the rating of products, as we find affordability very subjective and personal. Readers can compare the benefits (overall rating) and the price (price rating) based on their personal preferences to take informed actions.
b.Premiums compared are standard annual premiums for a Rs. 10 Lakh cover for a family of 2 adults (30-year-old) and one child (1 year old), living in Mumbai.
c.Premium calculations include additional premiums for optional riders.
d.Premiums are taken on 1st November 2023.
e. Premium affordability rating has been calculated by relative comparison of each product to the median average premium of the products under study.
f. Premiums affordability rating is indicative. Some products may have benefits beyond the scope of the rating methodology and hence be rated expensive as compared to other plans.
Product Selection:
1. 27 Insurance Companies, 45 products, and 66 plan variants that are actively distributed online by the insurance company or aggregators were selected for the study.
2. Plans that offered 10 Lakhs floater sum insured were considered.
3. We have not included the product offered by Navi Insurance because, at the time of our study, we found inconsistencies in what they are offering on their application vs what they are offering in their product’s prospectus and policy wording.
4. While we have rated all plan variants provided by the insurance company, for simplicity, we have displayed only the top-rated plan variant under a product in the above rating.
Conclusion:
Our goal with Mint Beshak Insurance Ratings is to empower you to find the best plans available in the market from 100s of plans and variants. We hope this was helpful. We will keep updating this rating every quarter based on fresh product information and disclosure data available.
Changes we made in Version 3.0
- In Product Rating, we have added a new parameter, ‘Policy Wording Simplicity’. Beshak has evaluated policy wording simplicity using popular technology tools that assess the readability of each policy document.
2. We have incorporated the track record of insurers spanning from FY 2019 to FY 2023, for which the following two parameters have been considered:
>Claims settled % within 30 Days
>No. of complaints for claims (per 10,000 claims)
We have performed year-wise relative scoring for each financial year, where we have assigned greater weight to recent financial years. We have then combined the track record of insurers of the last 5 years with Q1, FY 2024’s data to calculate the final Claim Track Record Rating.
3. We have updated the claims data. The claims data has been taken from public disclosures of insurers spanning from FY 2019 to FY 2023, as well as Q1, FY 2024. In the last published rating, the data was till 31st March 2023.
4. We have updated the product information (benefits, conditions, and limits) wherever product changes were made. The product data is as on 15th October 2023. In the last published rating, the data was till 26th June 2023.
5. We have included new products and plan options in the ratings launched up to 15th October 2023.
6. We have removed the old products and plan options from the ratings that the insurance companies have stopped selling online.
