Star Health and Allied Insurance has scaled its Home Health Care initiative to 300 cities, reporting a 600% jump in customer usage. Alongside this expansion, the insurer posted a 25% rise in profit after tax to ₹550 crore for the first quarter of FY27, with underwriting profits seeing a significant improvement. The company continues to focus on profitable retail and SME segments to drive growth.
Star Health and Allied Insurance, the country’s largest standalone retail health insurer, is rapidly scaling its Home Health Care (HHC) initiative, now covering 300 cities. This expansion comes alongside a strong financial performance for the first quarter of FY27, where the company reported a 25% year-on-year rise in Profit After Tax (PAT) to ₹550 crore. The insurer's Gross Written Premium (GWP) also climbed 19% to ₹4,287 crore, reflecting steady demand for health insurance coverage across India.
The HHC program, which allows patients to receive cashless medical care at home for common ailments like respiratory infections and fevers, saw customer numbers grow by 600% compared to the same quarter last year. The service delivered 50,000 consultations in the first quarter alone, aiming to provide prompt care and reduce unnecessary hospital visits for patients with minor conditions.
A key driver of the company’s improved financial health is its underwriting profit, which jumped to ₹111 crore in Q1 FY27, a significant rise from ₹16 crore in the same period last year. This indicates that the company is managing its claims and premiums more effectively. The company's combined insurance service ratio—a measure used to see how much money an insurer spends on claims and expenses relative to the premiums it earns—improved to 97.0%, compared to 98.7% in the previous year.
Star Health is also being selective about its business mix to maintain profitability. The company is consciously stepping back from certain group insurance segments for medium and large corporations, citing consistent losses in those areas. Instead, it is prioritizing the SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) segment and its core retail business, where it maintained a 29% market share in the first quarter.
While the HHC expansion is a clear growth strategy, it does carry execution risks. The success of this model will depend on the company’s ability to manage its network of third-party vendors, such as nurses and medical equipment suppliers, across these 300 cities without compromising service quality. Investors should also note broader sector risks, including medical inflation, which can push up claim costs and pressure profit margins over time. Additionally, the retail health insurance sector remains highly competitive, requiring the company to continuously balance service quality with premium pricing to defend its market share.
Looking ahead, the primary monitorable for the company will be its ability to balance this push for deeper geographic reach with the need to keep underwriting profitability high. Market participants will watch if the HHC service continues to see high adoption and if the insurer can sustain its current growth trajectory in the competitive retail market.