You finally decide to switch your health insurer.
Better service. Better coverage. Maybe a better claim experience.
You apply to port your policy to HDFC Ergo…
and the response stops you cold:
Sure, but you'll need to accept a deductible.
Cue the outrage on social media.
Cue the question every policyholder is now asking — is portability quietly being gatekept?
Parthanil Ghosh, MD & CEO of HDFC Ergo General Insurance, isn't backing down.
His line: deductibles aren't a barrier to portability.
They're a tool.
A way to keep premiums affordable in a country where medical inflation is galloping at ~14% a year.
His pitch to customers:
💸 A ₹25,000 deductible can cut your premium by roughly 20%
📈 As premiums climb every year, that fixed deductible shrinks in real terms
🛡️ You still get access to HDFC Ergo's claims machinery
⚖️ And the existing risk pool doesn't get blown up by incoming high-risk porters
Translation: we'll take you in, but on terms that don't wreck the math for everyone else.
The numbers are loud.
HDFC Ergo's portability business grew nearly 50% in FY26, crossing ₹500 crore.
Clearly, customers are still saying yes — deductible and all.
Ghosh wants to expand who gets covered, not just how many.
Enter the new ABCD rider — for people with:
🫁 Asthma
🩺 Blood pressure
🧬 Cholesterol
🍬 Diabetes
The hook: ₹3 lakh of cover for roughly ₹12 a day, with just a 30-day waiting period.
That's gig workers, small business owners, the missing middle — finally getting a door that opens.
Ghosh lays them out bluntly:
🧩 Awareness — when GST was scrapped on premiums, sales spiked overnight. People just didn't know.
🤝 Trust — every customer still secretly wonders, will they actually pay my claim?
💰 Affordability — medical inflation is eating policies alive.
His fix? Standardize claim KPIs across the industry. Publish medical inflation data. Show fraud numbers. Make insurers boringly, brutally transparent.
Indian health insurance is quietly moving from "cheapest premium wins" to "sustainable premium wins."
Deductibles. Riders. Inflation-linked sums insured.
The product is finally growing up.
And customers, whether they love it or not, are being pulled along with it.
That's all for now!
