TPAs eye tier-2 cities to catch with insurance market growth

TPAs eye tier-2 cities to catch with insurance market growth
Seeking to catch up with the accelerating growth in number of lives being covered by health insurance policies, TPAs are now eyeing the tier-two cities where industry is seeing most of its new business gains.
The third party administrators (TPAs) are organisations specialising in processing insurance claims for various entities and are normally contracted by health insurance firms and companies self-insuring its employees.

TPAs currently have an average service network of about 10 to 15 branches in the country, most of which are in state capitals. In contrast, the general insurance companies, which control nearly entire health insurance product
portfolio, are present in an average of 400 locations.
This huge disparity requires TPAs to aggressively expand their operations to meet the needs of the burgeoning health insurance market, industry experts believe.
Besides, implementation of various government-sponsored health insurance schemes such as RSBY (Rashtriya Swashthya Bima Yojana) demand enhancement of service administration capabilities from TPAs.
One of the major TPA players, MediAssist, is planning a major expansion in its tier-two cities, both in terms of
number of centres and employees, and is also looking to service various government-sponsored health insurance schemes.
"As Indian health insurance sector grows, a pan-India network with locally empowered offices is essential for a TPA to meet the dynamic requirements of customers in terms of servicing capabilities, reach and an efficient provider network," a source close to MediAssist said.
"Our Tier-II operations will place us in a distinctive position to provide comfort to the insurers, hospitals and the insuring public managed by us," he added.