Insurance claims for heart care see dip after Covid: Report

BENGALURU : An internal analysis by ICICI Lombard General Insurance reveals that there was a sharp decline in insurance claims for cardiovascular ailments in India in 2020-2021 (during the pandemic), compared with 2019-2020 (before the pandemic). This trend was visible across men and women, major cities, for elective surgeries, non-elective surgeries and acute medical cases. The data was released ahead of World Heart Day on September 29.

While 2,033 claims were made in financial year 2019-2020, only 1,638 claims were made the following year, among women. As for men, 5,327 claims were made in 2019-2020, which reduced to 4,616 during the first year of the pandemic. “All cities showcase a downward trend of claims arising from heart ailments. However, Mumbai still has the highest number of claims, followed closely by NCR,” the analysis read.

Bengaluru saw 435 claims in 2019-2020, which decreased to 378 in 2020-2021. During 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, the city had the fifth highest number of claims among eight cities. “Claims for cardiovascular ailments come in two categories. One, is acute emergencies such as heart attacks, which saw no decline during the pandemic.

The other, are planned interventions which are reduced. One can speculate that this is due to patients postponing the procedures due to the Covid situation, diversion of hospital resources from cardiac to Covid-19 and closure of OPDs, which would otherwise detect problems,” said Sanjay Datta, Chief-Underwriting, Claims and Reinsurance, ICICI Lombard General Insurance.