NEW DELHI: India’s largest digital payments company, Paytm, is offering health insurance to the 300,000 auto and cab drivers who use the portal.
To start with, Paytm will provide ₹50,000 of health cover to the drivers, without the need to furnish documents or a health check-up. The policies will later be extended to the drivers’ families. They will also be able to increase the value of policy. The first two premiums, of ₹100 per month, will be free.
In the second phase Paytm will extend the scheme to merchants in the unorganised retail space such as small shopkeepers. Paytm has a base of more than 600,000 merchants. The insurance will be deducted from the merchants’ wallets.
This will reduce the cost for insurers – in this case, Paytm’s partners – such as marketing cost, agents’ commission and collection. “That benefit can be passed on policy holder… The potential is huge as healthcare, unlike in developed countries, is hugely under-penetrated,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and CEO of Greyhound Research.