Customer satisfaction in health insurance sector

Abstract

Healthcare is one of India's largest sectors, in terms of revenue and employment, and the sector is expanding rapidly. The private sector accounts for more than 80% of total healthcare spending in India. When it comes to healthcare, there are two Indias: the country with that provides high-quality medical care to middle-class Indians and medical tourists, and the India in which the majority of the population lives—a country whose residents have limited or no access to quality care. A widespread lack of health insurance compounds the healthcare challenges that India faces. Although some form of health protection is provided by government and major private employers, the health insurance schemes available to the Indian public are generally basic and inaccessible to most people. For the small percentage of Indians who do have some insurance, the main provider is the government-run General Insurance Company (GIC), along with its four subsidiaries. While public sector health insurance has not fared well, the market for private health plans is expanding in India. With this background in mind, the main objective of this study is to compare the customer satisfaction between public and private sector medical insurance companies in India. The study is descriptive in nature as it seeks to describe in detail the state of customer satisfaction between public and private sector health insurance companies thus giving an in-dept understanding of the reality of customer satisfaction among medical insurance companies. The target population for the study comprises all individual customers having health insurance from all insurance companies that operate in India. The non probability sampling technique used in this study is convenience. A sample size of two hundred and fifty (250) customers has been used. To check the consistency of the questionnaire, item to total correlation has been used. Independent Sample T-test is used to compare the customer satisfaction between the public sector and private sector health insurance companies. The questionnaire is found consistent and it has been found that there is no significant difference in customer satisfaction between the public sector and private sector health insurance providers.