Ladies and gentlemen, good day, welcome to the Medi Assist Healthcare Services Limited Q4 and FY 2026 earnings conference call hosted by EY. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Cyril Paul from EY Investor Relations Services. Cyril, over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, welcome to the Q4 earnings call of Medi Assist Healthcare Services Limited. The company published its results on ninth May and has uploaded the investor presentation on exchanges early today. I trust all of you have had the opportunity to go through the same. Before we start, a disclaimer. Some of the statements made in today's earnings call may be forward-looking in nature.
Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Such statements are based on management's beliefs and assumptions made by information currently available to the management. Audience are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements while making their investment decisions.
On that note, let me introduce you to the management participating in today's conference call. We have with us Mr. Satish Gidugu, Chief Executive Officer and Whole Time Director, Mr. Sandeep Daga, CFO, along with several members of the team. Without further ado, I'd like to hand over the call to Satish. Thank you, over to you, Satish.
Thank you, Cyril. Good morning, esteemed investors, analysts, and all participants joining us from India and around the world. Thank you for taking the time to join us today as we review Medi Assist's performance for the year ended FY 2026. FY 2026 was a milestone year for Medi Assist, right, as we combine strong growth and deep technology-led transformation. Becoming debt-free and net cash positive strengthens our ability to invest in the future.
While our AI-powered platforms are now operating at unprecedented scale, processing nearly 1 million claims every month with industry-leading automation and fraud detection. The rapid expansion of MAtrix, successful integration of Paramount, and our new global partnerships position us very strongly to build the next generation of intelligent borderless healthcare administration. I'm pleased to be joined by our CFO, Mr. Sandeep Daga, and Cyril from EY, who leads our investor relations function.
I'd first like to share some of the key operational highlights from FY 2026. Before we go in, we continue to improve the quality of disclosures every quarter. We have further added more metrics for each of the segments now that we operate in group, retail, government, international benefits administration, technology business, and also try to give all of you a color on our technology platform and its evolution. While we will not necessarily do a page turn, let me summarize, you know, some of the key operational highlights from the year. The total Premium Under Management from administered was INR 25,923 crores as on March 31st, 2026, a growth of 22.8%.
For someone who's been into this business for this long, personally for me, INR 25,000 crore is a milestone number I'm happy to share with all of you today. The group premiums were INR 23,000+ crores, a growth of 25.6% year-on-year, and our group premiums retention stood at 93.2%. Of course, these are excluding acquisition numbers. The retail premiums in the TPA model were INR 2,818 crores, a growth of 4.2% year-on-year. The market share in terms of health insurance premium administered in group and retail of the total health premiums in India was 20.7% end of the year, which amounts to 115 basis points year-on-year growth.
The group segment market share saw 340 basis points of YoY growth, taking us to a 33.7%. The retail segment market share in the traditional TPA model was 5% on March 31st, 2026. Slightly lower than market share the previous year. In line with our hybrid approach to retail, as we discussed in some of the calls earlier, we have reported the premiums managed by private insurers on the back of our core claims processing technology platform, MAtrix. These premiums currently stand at over INR 18,000 crores, which represents 32% of industry retail premiums. While we were improving on the India business, we've also leveraged capabilities for delivering seamless global administration services through expanding partnerships.
We've deepened Southeast Asia presence through a strategic partnership with Thailand's leading insurance broker, giving us access to over $50 million of group premiums in that region. We expanded retail and travel portfolio, we've reported elsewhere in the slides the number of retail lives growth and the fact that we now have line of sight to about half of the global travel premiums that are being booked in India.
We also built some key global partnerships with Freedom Health, Himalayan Everest Insurance, and Royal Insurance Corporation of Bhutan. Expanding our ability to deliver outcomes for both inbound and outbound healthcare administration. Coming to Paramount TPA, the integration is on track. Over 50% of PHS, Paramount Health Services claims volume has already migrated to MAtrix. We are on track to becoming the primary processing engine before Q2 of FY 2027.
We've been able to enable all of the AI capabilities for the Paramount clients that are migrating to this new stack. As disclosed earlier, we've executed some transfer of Paramount TPA's TPA operations to Medi Assist's TPA, effective February 1st, 2026. Thereby creating a single unified TPA business within the group. Moving on to the technology highlights. Our tech revenues grew 91.9% year-on-year. There are multiple pilots underway with insurers in India and overseas.
MAven Guard, our proprietary AI fraud detection platform, has found and prevented over INR 540 crores of health insurance frauds in the last financial year. Raksha Prime, our flagship offering for improving cashless experience, enabled over 322,000 patients to walk out of the hospitals before the bills got even generated and across 6,000 hospitals in FY 2026.
All in all, we continue to be a technology-first, digitally integrated, platform that delivers outcomes to all the key constituents of the industry, the payers, the providers and the members. Our AI investments are paying off in creating a unified, interconnected, you know, intelligence platform that we believe is going to change the way all of these stakeholders experience healthcare in the service delivery. I will now hand over the call to our CFO, Sandeep, who will take you through the financials for the year FY 2026.
Thank you, Satish, and a very warm welcome to all the participants. The financial highlights for FY 2026. Total income was INR 923.2 crore, a growth of 23.6% YoY. The revenue from contracts with customers, excluding other income, which we call as operating income, was INR 904.8 crore, a growth of 25.1% year-on-year. This time we are disclosing separate segments and their revenue contribution to the group as such. As a result of which, the group segment contributes roughly around 69.5% of the total revenue, translating to INR 629.1 crore, representing a 25.3% growth year-on-year.
10.6% of the total revenue came from the retail segment, translating to INR 95.5 crore, representing a 10.9% growth year-on-year. 12.6% of the total revenue came from the government business, translating to INR 113.6 crore, representing a 42.6% growth year-on-year. 4.5% of the total revenue came from the international business administration business, translating to INR 41.1 crore, representing the 11.9% growth year-on-year. The technology SaaS platform contributed to 2.5% of the total revenue, translating to INR 21.7 crore, representing a 91.9% growth year-on-year.
Coming to the margin profile, EBITDA, excluding other income, we call it as operating EBITDA, was INR 174.6 crore. This translated a growth of 13.3% YoY and was equivalent to a margin of 19.3% on operating revenue. We have seen a quarterly EBITDA expansion in the margin. The Q4 EBITDA profile was 19.9% versus 18.6% in Q3 and 17.1% in Q2. The reported PAT for the year was INR 89.3 crore. Once we exclude the exception items net of the tax impact, the adjusted PAT stands at INR 68.8 crore. We have also shared in the investor presentation the PAT bridge to a steady state PAT and our commentary on the same, which can be referred on slide number 13 and 14.
Moving to few of the key highlights from the balance sheet and other operating metrics as on March 31st, 2026. The free cash flow position as on date was INR 260.5 crore. The net worth of the group stood at INR 852.4 crore. Contract liability, INR 280.2 crore. Pleased to inform that the group has become debt-free during January 2027. The revenue per average headcount on the non-government business was INR 3.1 lakhs. With this, I hand over the call back to the Chorus Call team. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and then two. Participants, you are requested to use handsets while asking your question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. A reminder to all, you may press star and one to ask a question. We have the first question from the line of Navid Virani from Bastion Research. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible?
Yes, sir, you're audible.
Yes, Navid, we can hear you.
Yeah. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity. I have two, three questions. The first one is on the overall business. If we look at the dominance and the market share that we have in the group business, that is kind of, you know, missing in the retail part. Given the capabilities that Medi Assist possesses as of date, how do you think this kind of dominance can be achieved in the retail business? That's the first question I have.
Sure, Navid. This is Satish here. I'll attempt to answer that question. Right. I mean, we don't have to discuss, but, you know, in group, the policyholder typically is far more aware of the service they need, the complexity, you know, of the requirements that they want and the technology, the deployment, the networks, and the importance to provide some kind of stable stability and continuity for their employees as they continue to expand benefits and potentially work with more than one insurer even. Right. That is what allowed us to establish our right to-- I n the group business and significantly expand our market share.
Retail for a very long time was plain, if I were to put it, plain vanilla catastrophic care, inpatient only, with a very low incidence, very low frequency and high-value claims. Depending on the insurers and when they started their journey of building some of these capabilities, there was a time where the TPA industry was not ready, and some of the other insurers that came in later followed a hybrid approach of building some capabilities inside and, you know, using TPAs. Some of the newer generations are relying on, you know, TPAs for large-scale dependencies such as network and physical presence, electronic distribution. I think depending on the insurers, they are at different stages of, you know, where they are in their evolution.
What we have seen, you know, especially post-COVID, is there are two or three areas where we've seen opportunities. One, where products are moving to, say, a high frequency, you know, low-value claims, especially around outpatient and various benefit products. Where the insurers need it to supplement their desire to be the front end to their customers, but with significant back-end capabilities such as a countrywide network and superior fraud detection, and sometimes even an entirely new claims processing system. Retail has, in our minds, evolved to be for lack of better words, a hybrid, you know, approach across the country.
Today, we are able to deploy our TPA capabilities in the portfolios where we are hired as a TPA, which basically means that the insurer introduces us to the member saying Medi Assist will henceforth take care of you. We have solutions today by teasing out all the technology capabilities in a plug-and-play model, where the insurers are able to plug in the various capabilities that will make them more effective in delivering retail services to their membership.
That's what we are beginning to sort of report as our technology revenues. I think, Navid, sorry, I know it was long-winded, but I think the market is evolving and we have solutions for whatever would be the scenario in which a retail insurer, you know, prefers to sort of evolve their approach. We still probably deliver the best if we were to run end-to-end.
Okay. Thank you for that elaborate answer. Just a follow-up on that one. We have, you know-- It's really helpful to see, you know, additional data points that you have introduced which I am assuming is pertaining to the technology business. I can now see that there is INR 18,100 crore kind of a premium which is, you know, being administered through the technologies that Medi Assist has introduced. How can I, let's say, get a sense on the kind of earnings that Medi Assist is, you know, generating on this piece of business?
If I look at the overall PUM, you know, divide by revenue divide by overall PUM, I can get a sense that there is a 3.5% kind of a yield that Medi Assist earns. Since this new data point has been introduced, is there a metric or is there a, you know, suggestion that you would give to investors like us who can, you know, track the kind of realizations or earnings that we are, you know, generating on the technology part of the business?
Thank you. I think we've typically not disclosed some of these revenue metrics as in the past as it's an evolving space, right? If you look at the TPA business today and look at the way, you know, some of the contractual obligations are around the headcounts that we deploy in terms of, you know, for fulfilling contractual obligations. I think it would be fair to say that a reasonable target state is, you know, the technology business allowing us to capture the non-headcount portions, right, of our yields, and hopefully be able to charge in some cases on outcomes.
With a higher margin profile of maybe at least 1.5x- 2x the traditional, you know, TPA business is I think is directionally would be a fair way to look at it. However, this is not a guidance, and this is just to give you a perspective of the parameters that typically go into this evolution of our platform-led growth. If I were to just take this a little further and look at what we are able to do in the international markets today. We are able to deploy the same technology stack in globally, and that's the pipeline that, you know, we've spent a lot of time building in FY 2026.
For example, the contract that we recently signed in Thailand allows us to provide our front-end technologies that are critical for memberships digital experiences to a cohort that's actually being serviced in that country. A lot of our international contracts are also on the back of how we are able to deploy our tech as is, in those geographies. Given the wide variety of contracts and, you know, the deployment models, it'll be hard for us to provide a guidance. I think what I said earlier, I think would be a reasonable, you know, aspiration.
Okay. That helps. That helps. Last question I have. If I look at the, you know, industry, can you help us understand, let’s say if the industry premium is INR 100 , what portion of that is being administered via TPAs, and what portion of the industry premiums are not, you know, under the TPA purview as of now? If you can give some understanding on that would be helpful.
There are no clearly reported numbers, and one has to compile based on multiple disclosures across insurers and TPAs. I think just from an order of magnitude perspective, you know, best to think about it as a 50/50 between, you know, what the traditional TPA models have deployed, and predominantly so in the group side of the business for reasons I mentioned earlier. The other 50, you know, also for some regulatory reasons, like for example, the personal accident and others not in the scope of a TPA. I think I would go with the 50/50 for now, just for you to get a sense of the size of the market.
Okay. Thank you for answering all my questions. Wish you all the best. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Navid.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management will be able to address all the questions from the participants in the question queue, we request you to kindly limit your questions to two per participant. If you have a follow-up question, please rejoin the queue again. We will take the next question from the line of Prithvish Uppal from Nuvama Wealth. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. My first one is a follow-up on the earlier participant's question in terms of getting a sense on the international segment, specifically around, you know, what is our take rate or the pricing. This INR 22 crore that we got in FY 2026 from the technology side, is it sort of fair to assume that of the premium managed on the platform model, that would be essentially in a way a denominator that from which we can sort of get a sense on the take rate? Depending on the mix of, you know, Raksha Prime or the mix of probably MAtrix or even, you know, that pricing could probably evolve over time. That was just from a first question from an understanding perspective.
My second question was that if I looked at your retention, you know, compared to last year. Ex of Paramount is about 93.2%. Just wanted to understand why, you know, that is slightly lower. If you can also give some color on the PSU allocation, you know, specifically around retail and group. You know, given the conversations, how those are, you know, sort of evolving. My third question would be that if I was to assume Paramount growth, Paramount contribution about INR 34 crore-INR 35 crore, similar to last quarter.
Excluding that the growth is around 10%-11%, which is ex of Paramount. You know, what are the levers here for us, you know, over the next two years to probably accelerate, you know, this. What kind of mix and what is the kind of revenue, the growth aspiration that, you know, you have, going forward? These would be broadly my questions.
Thank you, Prithvish. That was a lot, but I will attempt to answer each one of them as best of my abilities. I think the first question, the reason we put the premiums out is think of this as an opportunity that exists, not necessarily the limiting factor on the current set of revenues. Obviously, the revenues in FY 2026 are also because of the timing and how much of the transition sort of has taken place of some of the core deliverables. I think you are right. The way to look at it is that there is an opportunity basket that exists. The more we are able to deliver in terms of incremental components and incremental capabilities, the incremental revenues from those premiums will continue to grow.
At this point, the revenues are only from the pure SaaS platform, which is the core claims engine like MAtrix. It currently does not have any of the AI-led features or outcome-based pricings built in yet. 'Cause in the past, our AI engines were very tightly coupled to MAtrix because one had to first migrate to MAtrix in order to be able to use some of these services. But as mentioned, you know, in the decks and in our PR, we've been able to now sort of, you know, tease these capabilities out.
Today, MAven Guard, our fraud detection engine or Raksha Prime, our discharge experience and a few other very interesting capabilities that are in the labs can now work on top of legacy or proprietary, you know, claims platform that the insurance companies might already be running and deliver some of these incremental values. In summary, this is the opportunity of the pie that exists, and the total revenues that we booked will be based on the value that we are able to create, you know, to the insurers that are on the platform. On the retention side, on group side, yes, it is marginally lower than our historical 94+ %.
you know, I think part of that is attributable to some of the deliberate decisions that we took at the beginning of the year from a quality of revenue perspective. Of course, part of that was a little bit of a transition in some of the operational changes that we made to improve the overall experience. While we've not discussed the Q1 and we see the 93% largely driven by, you know, what transpired in Q1 of, you know, last year. Since then, I think we've gotten back on track. Hopefully, as we move forward, we should get back to a slightly higher, you know, retention rates. On the allocations of retail and so on, these are not in our control. Different insurers have different, you know, cycles.
As and when there is an allocation that happens, I think we will continue to sort of participate and win based on merits. Especially if you look at, you know, the work that, you know, we are doing on retail. I'm just trying to find the page. There was page number eight where we talked about the retail business. While our, you know, the premiums that we managed grew just by about, you know, 4% in the TPA model. We have delivered over 38% improvement in the fraud detections in, you know, in our small portfolio of that size. We've delivered experience to the membership in retail, which is typically not being seen in the market today.
As we continue to deliver and redefine how retail customers are serviced at par with the group customers, and we believe that will continue to improve our right to win even in the standard TPA model. Lastly, I think from a growth perspective, you're right. The consolidated, you know, growths are in the range that you know, spoke about. At the end of the day, for us, Paramount is an organic one the moment we sign the deal because the retention responsibility and growth of that book is 100% our responsibility. In some ways, adding Paramount is an organic growth once we sign. Having said that, if you looked at the business segment reporting that we've done, this is the first time we've sort of called out the revenue contributions, you know, from each group.
You've also seen the outcomes that we are able to deliver to the insurers, significantly supplementing from a growth perspective. We expect the technology and international, you know, growth trends to sort of continue, you know, if not improve compared to FY, you know, 2026. On the core business, we will, as we always said, from an overall industry growth perspective, we will match or better. Of course, the translation to revenue is slightly slower because we don't report on premiums. We report on a 12-month basis service. That's why a lot of our revenue today sits in what we call as contract liability, which is revenue that is committed, but, you know, we haven't yet booked into the P&L. That's an incremental INR 280 crores of annual revenue that's actually sitting in the balance sheet today.
Got it. Sir, anything on the mix? As of now, technology is contributing around 2.5%. Maybe say 20, you know, couple of years forward, how do you see the contribution from this coming through? This, as you had mentioned, this 2.5% is probably just from, as of now, the one product that we are monetizing, but we are developing capabilities across multiple, you know, sort of lines. How much do you think how big can this piece, you know, become over the next maybe, say, two, three years?
We think that it's a great opportunity, especially if you put the international opportunities in the mix, right? We are only reporting, you know, limited deployments in the Indian market with limited insurers. I think we're comfortable to say that, you know, compared to FY 2026, there were some very interesting growth rates you saw on the tech business. You've not seen a lot of the growth on the international business, a substantial amount of the work was done to build a very strong pipeline that will contribute to the international business. I think we're comfortable saying similar growth rates, you know, we should continue to see in these businesses.
Of course, we also hope and that as India needs to buy, you know, more and more insurance, that between the policy interventions and other opportunities, that the health insurance market itself, you know, will start picking up the growth trends that were, you know, visible, you know, not too long ago. Then as the leading player in the market, we will continue to make the most of the health insurance growth trajectory in India.
Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Jayesh Gandhi from Harshad Gandhi Securities Private Limited. Please go ahead.
First of all, congrats to the management for becoming debt-free. I have one question, which is on the government-backed Bima Sugam. What impact can you envisage that it can have on our business in future?
That, you know, I think let's just take a step back and look at the whole objective and the vision of the government, which is 2047, right? Insurance for all by 2047. Of course, which means health insurance for all. Everybody needs to be covered by some kind of a, you know, health financing plan, right? Whether it is private or public sponsored in whichever be the template. Of course, for a country of this size, you know, one is to aspire that everybody has insurance. Two is how do you make that a reality, both from people discovering products, you know, participating in purchasing products and getting, you know, exceptional service in every nook and corner of this, you know, subcontinent.
Some of those are the core, you know, capabilities that we need to build as a country. The government's vision in some ways includes a multi-pronged approach. You know, one is how do you create a simplified marketplace where, you know, the citizens of this country can discover insurance and buy. That's more on the distribution side. Of course, the second and equally important aspect is the whole Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, which is the mothership for many other digital interventions. Be it the standardization of the hospital records to electronic health records, to creating the equivalent of an account aggregator, but in the healthcare space, to building the equivalent of a UPI, you know, for, you know, health payments.
I think these are various initiatives that the government has kicked off between NHA and the IRDAI. We are a very proud partner to, you know, many of these events, especially on the National Health Claims Exchange. We are deeply integrated. Multiple insurers use our integration today to integrate with NHCX. I think the only positive takeaway that I will take out of this, Jayesh, is if all of these initiatives get us back to the takers that are actually needed between now and 2047 for health insurance to reach 100% of the population.
An d we will be there in whatever form and fashion that we can, one, support that initiative and, two, you know, monetize the capabilities that we have built, be it as a TPA or as a technology partner or even in the public health. You've seen the work that we do across 13 states and, you know, three union territories today, contributing over INR 113 crores of [inaudible]. I know it's a long-winded answer, but you know, it'll be unfair for me to limit this only to Bima Sugam. Thanks.
I was specifically asking for our business in a sense where claim filing and claim settlement is also part of this. We have government as our one of the biggest customers. In maybe not in, say, longer term, say five, 10 years, but do you see this as a problem? I mean, not a problem, but do you see it as a risk immediately for two years, maybe once it is launched and, you know, once it becomes acceptable?
No, I think-
I know the industry is growing, so maybe we in a pretty long period of time, it will be advantageous to us as well. Say in a short span, say two, three years.
No, I do not expect any disruption on account of Bima Sugam on what we do. At the end of the day, every member, you know, who buys a policy is a promise, and the claims have to be adjudicated and processed. Network has to be delivered, service has to be delivered. Unfortunately, sometimes we look at health insurance and dumb this down only to just processing a claim, you know, post-facto, right? It's about building networks. It's about eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse, you know, at source. It's about guiding membership to find the right hospital within their financial outcomes.
Today, over 60% of the membership today that uses our MAven Navigator, which is a predictive tool, actually adjust their room types and the hospital choices to optimize their out-of-pocket expenses today, right? Somebody needs to sort of demystify the insurance policies and so on and so forth. I think, one, the service gamut of health insurance is beyond just a post-facto reaction to a claim that is actually filed.
In fact, I would argue that the true measure of this country's success would be a 100% cashless and resulting in, you know, 100% payable in health insurance products rather than those products that actually focus on, you know, deductions. I think each of those will need distribution scale, network, technology, manpower and integrations, which we believe we have a combination of all of those that are required for us to be a very effective partner either in the National Health Claims Exchange or to be a backbone for any of the other initiatives.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to all the participants. We request you to kindly limit your questions to two per participant. We have the next question from the line of Vansh Solanki from RSPN Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, management. Hope I'm audible. My question on the company is that we are majorly based on AI and in the continuously claim processing also, we are continuously using the AI MAtrix. What is the error rate of AI and what is the chance that if the AI is so powerful and majorly, like 99% of the claim processing work will be done by the AI. Of course, the insurance company also will know that we are using AI to cut our cost. Is there any chance that in future, maybe after three, four years, the normal take rate is continue about 3.5% in the industry, which can be reduced to 2.5% or maybe lower?
Thanks, Vansh. I think there are multiple nuances to your question. I'll try to peel the layers. Right. First, you know, in countries like U.S., and I think, in fact, in my past life in early 2000s, I built rule engines that automated, you know, partly the health claims processing, you know, in markets like the U.S. First of all, it's not unusual, right, in any market for claims to be automatically processed. You are already seeing that in certain areas in India, especially like small value motor claims, right? You can upload a picture, you can click a picture and send it, because often it costs more to send a surveyor to assess the loss than, you know, just pay the claim today, right?
Of course, you want assurance that the event has actually taken place, there's no fraud, waste or abuse, and that the reimbursements that you are paying to somebody are exactly as per the policy. A substantial part of claims processing is actually rule-driven, right? It would be unfair for us, even for me as a technologist, to say that you need complex AI to automate a claim. What we lack today as a country are good quality data inputs, structured data to actually deliver an application of the rules, right? It is no different from how you compute an income tax liability today. From various income sources, you have well-defined rules and the sequence of rules application, and eventually you'll arrive at a tax number.
Of course, one wouldn't be happy if you came up with just a number and you couldn't explain how you came up with the number or even if somebody told you are ± 5%, right, within that zone. Right? You know, take that crude parallel to, you know, health insurance claims. I think where we have excelled at so far is to build possibly the country's largest codification of master data inputs and rules that are required for us to adjudicate each claim as per the promise of each policy of each member and overlay that on each bill and each specific treatment, and be able to completely independently explain how the system actually arrived at the final outcomes of a claim. That's what we actually do today.
Much as we would like to say AI will automate a claim, what we need AI for right now urgently in the country is to make sure inputs are good enough for the rule engines, and two, that nobody's playing the system. The rest is largely rule-driven. I think that's the combination today we deploy, and that's how we are able to deliver value that is absolutely measurable to the insurers, like fraud savings of over INR 540 crores.
We deliver net-network discounts of over, you know, INR 1,300 crores last year. I think that's where, you know, we are, Vansh. This space will evolve. I hope that we actually are able to automate 70%-80% of all health insurance claims in a manner that citizens of this country rebuild their trust or build their trust in health insurance, which actually allows us to really run towards this 100% coverage by 2047. When that day comes, yield is a smaller problem and opportunity is the larger problem.
Okay. You didn't give answer to the rate part that whether there is a chance because IRDAI also, you know, continuously pressurizing insurance companies to lower the insurance premium. Is there a chance that our take rate can also decrease from like from five years from now to 3.5%- 2.5% or so? Because it's already decreased from 5% in last five years.
I think it's very hard for me to forecast what will happen, you know, five years later. You know, much of the group yield changes, to be honest, is also because of the introduction of a variety of low-ticket size benefits that some of the employees and their families actually opt in for, which are not fully priced, right? It doesn't mean that we're getting necessarily paid lesser for the same work, you know, compared to before.
It is also the nature of benefits that are changing, right? Somebody could actually pay incremental 1% premium and potentially get a room rent deduction waiver or a copay waiver. Not everybody participates in these small ticket size opportunities. You know, on the whole, it might look like the yields are compressing. Our internal metrics we track more on, you know, the effort versus the life level remuneration, and those have been fairly healthy or improving from our side. I think it'd be very hard for me to answer that question specifically, but we'll continue to improve our disclosure so that you have a fair sense of where the world is headed.
Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Manjeet Buaria from Saamya Advisors LLP. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one is slightly longer, so please bear with me. You know, on the technology side of our business, you know, if we start pricing them at fixed price contracts versus outcome-based pricing, won't it become very difficult to move them to outcome-based pricing later?
Because, you know, typically I don't see B2B contracts, you know, sort of being revised once established. Why I'm trying to understand that is, you know, if we really have great technology and let's say it's saving INR 500,000 crore in FWA over time for our customers, right? Why don't we charge about 10% of that? Because they have no other option to get that, you know, savings either way. So they should be happy to pay for it.
That was question one. The second question was, you know, what is the volume growth or, you know, growth in lights cover that is required in our core group business for us to be able to grow that business in the 10%-12% range organically. This is in context of most large corporates in India, IT companies, banks, etc , you know, literally seeing no net addition in employees. I'm just curious as to, you know, what will keep that organic rate at 10%-12% without that group. Thanks. Those are the two questions.
Thank you, Manjeet. I think, like I clarified right now, that the current tech revenues that we are reporting are only for the core SaaS platform, which is a foundational end-to-end claims processing engine. Currently, none of the AI capabilities are contributing to that revenue number. Of course, we like to believe that the world, especially the AI-led world, should eventually move to outcomes-based pricing because the cost of running that is non-trivial, right? I think that that's sort of directionally our view as well. I think that is a fair way to go back to the insurers and saying, "Here are the outcomes that I can deliver.
If I deliver the outcomes, you know, you pay for the outcome from a technology and AI and the model perspective. In fact, I believe that a lot of AI will eventually, you know, move to that model. Currently, we don't have a contract where it's a fixed price contract for where we can potentially deliver outcomes. Secondly, on the organic growth side, historically, when the health insurance industry was growing at 18%, 19% CAGRs until about three years ago, our group sort of led a little bit. Group was growing at about you know, 18%, 19%.
Post-COVID, there was a exuberance both in terms of the number of, you know, positions that were created, employees hired, and also the expansion of benefits to cater to hybrid, you know, remote, different kinds of networks, different kinds of benefits. We saw over the last five years, you know, the highest same-store growth on an annual renewal of even 20%, 25% compared to the pre-COVID standard growth rates that we used to see on same-store growth on 13%-14%, right? If you retained five, if your churn is five, which means 100 became 95 on renewals.
On 95, we had a 13, 14 tailwinds, which sort of provided that natural same-store growth before we organically added, like, new business. We continue to add a lot of new business organically. In fact, last year we added over INR 2,000 crores of new group premiums organically. Of course, they reflect depending on, you know, the time of the year at which the account is added. Coming back to your question on the growth.
From the highs of 25% odd post-COVID to we saw a decline to 18%, 15%, you know, closer to 12%, 13% now tracking to maybe 8%-10% on the same-store growth blended. I think that's what we are currently seeing. It's fair to ask that, you know, with the IT/ITS slowdown and some of the large enterprises slowdown, what's actually happening. It is not that the other industries are not picking up from a lines perspective, right? Other industries are definitely picking up.
In fact, we have over 25 industries, you know, in our book today. The reason why IT/ITS stands out is, one, is the sheer number, and two is the wallets, the size of the benefit, right? The per unit or per employee benefit or the ticket size is fairly high in the IT and the ITS business. You need many more of, say, manufacturing jobs to match the ticket size.
We're seeing some very interesting growth trends, for example, in oil and gas to chemical to some of the other industries, and some amount of the manufacturing that, you know, we've been able to take our services to, are reasonably augmenting from a life's growth perspective. The reason you don't see that translate into premiums right now is the differences in the ticket sizes. We think that the life's growth is reasonably secular if you combine all of the groups together.
Got it. Thanks. Satish, just one more question was, you know, you mentioned something called headcount-based contracts in one of the responses. I just wanted to understand how does this headcount-based contract really play out? To your other contention that AI does not really impact this piece on automation, etc . The long answer you gave very helpful. You know, typically where there's headcount-based sort of contracts, savings on that because of AI are typically asked that by customers. I'm just confused about those two data points. Could you clarify them, please?
No, no, very fair point, [inaudible]. I will be a little clearer. I think if you look at our business today, I would first split this into where the contractually we are supposed to deploy headcount, which is like the public health or the government business today, right? Nearly a third of our headcount today is contractually obligated and deployed at the remotest corners of the country, serving, you know, INR 27 crores of members through public health schemes today, right? There is no technology, there is no AI. It's our duty as a leader to participate and deliver services.
Of course, we continue to be careful about the quality of revenue and various other aspects, and that's why we continue to be a material player, but not actually have that business create any kind of a drag for us in the overall margin profile. I think where I was saying that some of it is headcount-driven today in the core TPA business, it's also because the existing expectations of the workflows of the industry, right? The workflows of the industry today expect that a doctor and their registration number and there's a seal and signature when you send a claim file to an insurance company today.
You have corporates today, because they don't yet have a fully integrated digital experience, expect that an account manager sits out of their office and, you know, delivers service today. There are some aspects of the core business that are still driven by headcount. If you look at our employee benefits cost that we report as a percentage of revenue, I think last year was among the highest as the integration process started. Otherwise, typically we've been around 45%. Even if I unwound some of the other services that potentially could be treated as EB, will not be more than 50%.
Most TPAs that we acquired had headcount costs in the range of, say, 65%-75% of revenues, right? That's what our technology is already enabling us to differentiate. I think the limited point that I made that AI for AI to make impact, it is the quality of inputs and your ability to sort of standardize, homogenize inputs and flag off outliers is way more important than just deploying guessing through AI on the outcome of a claim, because claim is significantly a rule-driven that we already sorted out, you know, within the platform.
Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Tarang Agrawal from Old Bridge. Please go ahead.
Hi, am I audible?
No, Tarang, you're not audible. Kindly use the handset mode.
Just give me a second. Hi. Hello. Am I audible now?
Yes, please proceed.
Yes. Hi. Wonderful. Good morning, team, and congrats for a strong set of numbers. A couple of questions. Actually one. When do we expect the Paramount acquisition to integrate and for you to get your desired synergies? I mean, do you have a sort of a visibility on which quarter should that sort of start panning out?
Tarang, we've always said for every integration, at the risk of sounding repetitive, that four to five quarters is what it takes, given the nature of the 12-month-long contracts and mandatory annual renewals. We're three quarters down, I think our quarterly margins in Q4 also went up by another 130 bps, you know, compared to Q3. I think we still track to it being one or two quarters, at the most, from a Paramount perspective. Yeah, I think that's the simple answer, yeah.
Okay. Thank you. These disclosures, much appreciate the disclosures. Really helpful. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Tarang.
Yeah.
Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Neel Gowariker from LFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. A very good morning to you all. I have two questions. First question is regarding the in the past quarter, we had an exceptional item. What's the update on the recovery? The second question I have is on the nature of international business, where we are in impact because of the Middle East conflict. Have we seen any impact because of it? What kind of quarter lag are we likely to see in the revenues because of it? That's it.
Sure. I'll take the international question, you know. You know, let me just take a shot at it. If you need more details, Sandeep can chime in. I think those exceptional items that we've provided, they still continue to be open items, including insurance claims to the claims to sell out item, continue to be open. We will of course, you know, carry that each quarter until it comes to a logical conclusion. They are part of the disclosures in the financial accounts and the notes. On the Middle East conflict, we have no real exposure to Middle East, you know, today.
Our revenues, we significantly operate in continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and inbound and outbound from India with some amount of work in the U.S. We have little or no exposure today to what's happening from a conflict perspective. I think the only slowdown that we saw in the international business was on the group segment, where like the IT companies reducing, you know, headcounts in India, there have been also some amount of patterns that have changed in terms of medium and long-term deployments of their employees abroad.
And the portion that is, in fact, in some ways, I wouldn't say negatively impacted, but because the premiums are going up. We serve some of the seafarers across the globe today. There is some operational challenges there, but we currently don't see, from a, you know, revenue and any kind of a negative impact, perspective.
Okay. Thank you. That answers my question. In terms of this international business, though, is there any specific region that we are focusing on or targeting? Like, we've just opened up in Thailand that way. Is there any specific area that we're looking to target in the, in the coming future, let's say? Not a broad term target in that sense.
I think on international, we are fairly clear that we are not trying to replicate what we do in India. We are predominantly taking our technology and other capabilities to those markets. At this point, I think we see markets like regions like Southeast Asia having the most similar workflows and processes and sort of quicker deployment cycles for the technology stack that we have available.
Okay. Fair enough. Thank you very much. That's it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as the last question. I now hand the conference back to Mr. Satish for closing comments.
Thank you. Thank you all for joining us early this morning and thank you for all the insightful questions. Truly appreciate your partnership and feedback. As a company that has no peer or a comparable in the markets, you know, we will strive to improve our disclosures and strive to improve the explanation of how we run our business, what the opportunities are. Thanks again for, you know, shaping some of the narratives with your insightful questions.
I think as we close, we are truly excited as Medi Assist that we are able to deliver a technology platform that's typically not seen in most markets. 'Cause most solutions today target one of the stakeholders, right? You build solutions for insurances, build solutions for hospitals. You build solutions and digital journeys for members. We are in a unique place where tens of millions of, you know, members and, you know, millions of claims transactions, allowing us to create truly interconnected intelligence, you know, platforms that are connecting all of the stakeholders in any market and very seamlessly enabling experiences that can be enabled only when all three stakeholders are connected extremely well. We are excited about the opportunity. We are excited about the time and space we are in, and we are excited about our growth prospects both in India and outside. Thank you again for your continued partnership. Thank you.
Thank you, members of the management. On behalf of EY, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.