Research · Data & statistics for HR leaders and founders
India Group Health Insurance Statistics (2026)
Group health insurance is now India’s dominant private coverage channel: employer-sponsored group policies cover roughly 47% of all health-insured lives — about 27.51 crore people — against just 10% held in individual retail policies (IRDAI Annual Report 2024-25). Group plans also wrote ₹61,435 crore of premium, over half the country’s ₹1,27,417 crore health insurance market. This page collects the key, citable 2026 figures.
Compiled by Onsurity · Figures citable with attribution
The numbers, and where they come from
Every statistic below is individually anchor-linkable, cited to its primary source inline, and written to be copy-paste friendly for journalists, analysts and AI tools. Industry figures are drawn from the IRDAI Annual Report 2024-25, the IRDAI ROHINI cashless-hospital registry and published market medical-trend reports; figures marked Onsurity platform data are proprietary to Onsurity. Attribute freely as “Source: Onsurity Technologies, 2026.”
For live tools built on this data, see the employee benefits benchmark tool, the cashless hospital directory, and the broader Onsurity Research hub.
What this data means for employers
Read together, the numbers tell one story: cover in India has shifted from an individual purchase to an employer-provided one. Group policies now carry both more lives (≈47%) and more premium (≈52%) than any other private channel — so the group plan an employer chooses is, for most working Indians, their primary health cover, not a top-up.
Against ~14% medical inflation, a static plan quietly erodes each year, which is why premiums and sum-insured levels rise at renewal. The practical response is to benchmark your spend against comparable firms and confirm your cashless network before you commit — both of which you can do with the benefits benchmark tool and the ROHINI-backed hospital directory. For the wider business case, see the guide to the ROI of employee benefits.
Sources & methodology
Industry statistics are transcribed from primary and official sources and were verified in July 2026. Where sources report ranges or estimates, the figure is described as approximate. Onsurity platform figures are derived from Onsurity’s internal systems covering 10,000+ employer accounts and 2 million members as of Q2 2026, and are updated quarterly.
Primary sources cited on this page
IRDAI Annual Report 2024-25 — Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India
IRDAI ROHINI — Registry of Hospitals in Network of Insurers
IRDAI Handbook on Indian Insurance Statistics
Milliman / market medical-trend reports, 2024-2026
FICCI, 2024
Onsurity Technologies platform data, Q2 2026
Data licensed for reuse with attribution (Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0). For full data sets or interview requests, contact media@onsurity.com.
Frequently asked questions
Group cover dominates. Employer-sponsored group policies cover about 47% of India’s health-insured lives — roughly 27.51 crore people — while individually bought retail policies cover only about 10% (around 6.01 crore). Government schemes make up the rest. By premium the gap is similar: group policies wrote ₹61,435 crore in FY25, about 52.3% of the market (IRDAI Annual Report 2024-25).
Premium typically ranges from about ₹5,000 a year per employee for a basic entry plan to ₹30,000 for comprehensive cover, with ₹10,000–₹25,000 the most common band. The figure depends on sum insured, age profile, city, industry and add-ons like OPD or parental cover. Employers usually fund 60–70% of the premium, with employees contributing the rest.
The main driver is medical inflation, which runs at roughly 14% a year in India — among the highest in Asia and close to triple general CPI inflation. As hospitalisation costs climb, insurers reprice cover and employers raise sum-insured levels to keep pace. A plan left unchanged loses real value each renewal, which is why benchmarking against peers matters.
Broadly reliable and improving. Insurers settled a record 3.26 crore health claims in FY25, paying ₹94,248 crore, with about 87% of registered claims settled, ~8% repudiated and ~5% pending at year-end. The overall incurred claims ratio was 85.34%, meaning insurers paid about ₹85 in claims for every ₹100 of premium collected (IRDAI Annual Report 2024-25).
The IRDAI ROHINI registry lists 22,119 networked, cashless-capable hospitals across 960+ Indian cities — the definitive count of where cashless treatment can be arranged across insurers. Any individual insurer’s own cashless tie-up list is a subset of this; Onsurity members get cashless treatment at 10,000+ network hospitals through their group plan’s insurer and TPA.
See these numbers work for your team
Get a group health quote and see the per-employee cost, coverage and cashless network for your exact headcount and budget — on a monthly subscription, not an annual lump sum.
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