Awareness of health insurance in a South Indian population - A community-based study

To find out the awareness of health insurance in an urban population in south India, a community-based cross-sectional study was carried out. A total number of 242 respondents from 242 households (male 38.4%: female 61.6%) were interviewed by using a pretested proforma after obtaining informed consent from the participants. The awareness of health insurance was found to be 64.0 per cent. Around 45.0 per cent of the respondents came to know about health insurance from the media which played an important role in the dissemination of information. The mean premium amount agreeable to be paid by the respondents for health insurance was found to be Rs 1804.00, even the low socio-economic group of people were also willing to part with a reasonable amount of Rs. 697.00 annually for health insurance. The middle and low socio-economic groups favoured government health insurance compared to private health insurance. The findings indicate that government should come out with a policy, where the public can be made to contribute to a health insurance scheme to ensure unnecessary out-of-pocket expenditures and also better utilization of health care facilities.