Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q3 FY25 conference call of Niva Bupa Health Insurance Company Limited, hosted by ICICI Securities. As a reminder, the 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 the call, please press zero on your phone. Just before we begin, we'd like to inform you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as of the date of the call. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that cannot be predicted. To hand the conference over to Mr. Ansuman Deb from ICICI Securities. Thank you and over to you.
Thanks, Rayo. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of ICICI Securities, we welcome you all to the Q3 and nine-month disclosed-only results conference call of Niva Bupa Health Insurance Company. We have the senior management of the company represented by Mr. Krishnan Ramachandran, MD and CEO, Mr. Vishwanath Mahendra, CFO, Mr. Ankur Kharbanda, Chief Distribution Officer, Mr. Bhabatosh Mishra, Director of Underwriting, Products, and Claims, Mr. Gireesh Kumar, Chief Technology Officer, and Mr. Vikas Jain, Chief Investment Officer. We now hand over the call to Mr. Krishnan for his opening remarks. After this, we will open the Q&A. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Ankur, and a very, very warm welcome to all of you who are participating in this call, and thank you for making time for us this evening. To refresh memories, I thought it would be useful to summarize the six pillars of our strategy as Niva Bupa. Pillar one is building a granular, growth-oriented, and profitable health insurance franchise. Pillar two: being a health partner of choice for our customers. Pillar three: building a multi-channel and diversified distribution with emphasis on digital sales. Pillar four: technology and analytics-driven business model. Five: being disciplined about underwriting and claims management. The sense of customer expertise that Bupa has accumulated over several decades as well as through multiple geographies, and last, perhaps the most important, given how execution-intensive our business is, focused on talent management and execution.
One headline comment I'd like to make about quarter three is that it has been a quarter where there's been a significant regulatory change. While the change is about accounting and therefore does not have a material bearing on economic value, it did mean that it was a transition quarter, especially as far as our distribution partners were concerned, who were used to a certain income stream and had run their own particular industry, versus the accounting that was prevalent prior. So in that sense, Q3 for the entire industry and indeed for us was a quarter of transition, and as we briefly discussed the last time, fundamentally, from a business standpoint, I think the more important priority for us was to make sure that we navigate what this meant from a business standpoint.
I would like to confirm that for the most part, we do believe business fundamentals are unchanged as a result of this accounting transition. In terms of the value of the company, we'll get to that specifically as we go through our financial statements. Again, I'd like to reiterate that there's been no fundamental change in terms of what the business means from an underlying value standpoint. With that broadest view of a significant change in the quarter, I will sort of reflect on the quarter gone by in terms of GWP and profit on both bases so that you also understand what it has meant for the company. If I look at GWP on a like-for-like basis, without making this change, for the nine months gone by, we closed at INR 2,011 crores, which is a growth rate of 30.2% over last year.
The same thing factoring in for the accounting change, nine months was INR 2,683 crores, a growth rate of 21.7%. Our profit after tax on an Indian GAAP basis for the nine months that went by was INR 7.4 crores. But importantly, and we have consistently reiterated that the right set of accounts that reflect the underlying economic value of the business is IFRS, the transition of which for the industry is on the annual. So on an IFRS basis for the nine months gone by, our profit after tax was INR 119.5 crores. In terms of the various elements of our strategy, our product mix is largely unchanged from the nine months of the prior year, about 67% retail, and the balance being group with personal accidents and travel. There's been a marginal increase in the contribution of personal accidents and travel in our group. We continue to improve our market share.
Our market share on retail health grew to 9.6%, compared to 9% of the preceding nine months last year. During the quarter, we launched a product, a tiered-network product, which is an important product launch in the sense that for the first time as a company, we are offering a trade-off to the consumer in terms of network choice. For the most part, the basis of competition in the Indian market has been on the size of the network. With this product, we are giving customers the trade-off of a more affordable premium in return for choosing a more restricted network. Early days yet, I think it's an important product to widen penetration and our own growth, especially as we move down income segment. We continue to drive our GCP health and wellness proposition.
We are now up to 1.2 million downloads of our customer app, with a monthly active user base that has increased to INR 2.4 lakhs. And as I mentioned last time, we continue to see healthy volumes of health journeys that our customers, as well as non-customers, use our app for. So more than 30,000 health stops a month through the app, more than 6,000 customers that go through our app, and we continue to maintain high ratings on both Android as well as Play Store. On NPS, again, to refresh memories, we looked at NPS across customer touchpoints. NPS has improved in the nine months gone by, from a whole year of 50 last year to 53 in the nine months gone by.
And also importantly, claims, which is the moment of truth in our business, we have improved our NPS in the nine months this financial year to 66, up from 63 last year. We continue to diversify and deepen our distribution. We've added more than 9,000 agents in the quarter gone by, 11 partners in the bancassurance corporate agency space, and eight brokers. And we continue to have a very well-diversified distribution mix as a company. On technology, we continue to move the needle very high, very, very high proportion of policy servicing, renewal, cashless claims, as well as claims services. So we continue to maintain higher standards, enable technology and analytics. On the entire value chain, one KPI, I draw your attention to is we have moved the needle now to 28.6% of our cashless claims being auto-adjudicated without a human being reviewing the claim.
This is the most ambitious journey we've been embarked on as a company, which is to solve auto-adjudication of claims in an environment where, to a very large extent, hospitals still deal with paper and digital files, not digitized files. Our strategy of building out a preferred provider network, now we have the PPN present in 35 cities, covering about 455 hospitals, and about 14% of our claims in these cities go through the PPN network. Lastly, I'll close with a comment on talent, which is that for the fifth time in a row, we've been certified as a great place to work. We await our eventual rankings in the April to May timeframe, but in terms of the trust index score and the proportion of people who count Niva Bupa as a great place to work, in our employee base, we continue to have a very, very high standard.
So that's a broad brush update on the execution of the company strategy, and I'll hand over to Vishwanath, our CFO, for an update on our financial performance.
Thank you, sir. Good evening, everyone. So let me switch and talk about this. Without 1/365 by any stretch, GWP registered in those top 20 plus plans, YTD on like-for-like basis. Net earned premium also grew by same percentage, 20% to INR 3,361 crores in the nine months compared to last financial year. IFRS cash has more than tripled from INR 18 crores to INR 260 crores for the quarter three. And Indian GAAP profit for the nine months quarter three has also improved from INR 466 crores last year to INR 1,350 crores this year. The combined ratio for nine months FY 2025 is 100.9% without 1/365 impact, with an improvement of 270 basis points from nine months FY 2024 on like-for-like basis. Combined ratio for the nine months on one-by-one basis is 105%. Expenses of Management ratio for nine months is 39%, with an improvement of 50 basis points over the same period last year.
Investment yield in current financial year is 7.4%, with AUM of INR 57,311 crores. Solvency ratio is at a healthy level of 3.03 as of 21st December 2024, against a statutory minimum of 1.50. This was an overview of nine months for April 25. Happy to take questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Participants who wish to ask questions may press star and one on the dashboard telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the screen, you may press star and two. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment to allow the questions to be resumed. To ask questions, please press star and one. First question is from Supratim Datta from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Also, this combined ratio and the combined ratio increase that we have seen, could you break down a bit of the loss ratio now? Has it moved back also to 150%, or does it continue to be on 150%? I think it continues, and only the GWP has moved to a 1/365. Could you give us what would be the corresponding claims we should now attempt to move to in a 1/365 case? That's the first question that I wanted to understand. Second, of course, now that your expense ratio has increased because of this 1/365 impact, how do you recommend that regulatory threshold of 36%? Is there some leeway that the regulator plans to give, or how are you looking at reducing it now in the coming year? That would be my question.
Certainly, you mentioned the Kaiser, which is a particularly well-respected network of hospitals, which seems very similar to what kind of policies exist in the U.S. or in developed countries. Just wanted to know, what is the pricing differential here? What is the cost of premiums lower? What are additional facilities that you plan to give? And are these policies restricted only to your PPN network or is it an all-inclusive mechanism, something different? Those are my three questions for today.
Yeah. Thanks, Supratim. I'll take the first question. So we are still on 50% method of accounting as far as UPR is concerned. So the numbers which are given here is where GWP is proportionally reduced versus 100. And whatever GWP is coming, we can put NWP and 50% of the premium, UPR. So these numbers are on that basis. And we have given both the loss ratio by both the methods. So for 9 months, 61.1% is basis old accounting without 1/365, and 62.4% is 9 months old accounting and 3 months new accounting. And now coming to 1/365.
So Vishwanath, on this, can you give us the corresponding 1/365 method? What would be the loss ratio? Yeah.
Yeah. So we calculate 1/365, and we put it, I mean, reconciliation of IFRS accounts. So if I look at IFRS, it is around 64% for 9 months. Retail, retail. Yeah.
Overall, it's 64.2%.
Okay. Thank you. So this is in nine months?
Yeah. Nine months. Yeah.
Okay.
Just to repeat or reiterate, nine months overall loss ratio, 64.2% on a one-by-45 basis. Yeah.
Okay.
Also, your question on expense of management, as with many other companies, we have a hearing with IRDA, and we have also, the IRDA has sent out an advisory to us. One is for the prior years, which is up to FY 2024. We have been given a dispensation formally by the regulator. For this year as well as next year, the regulator has asked us to conform to the glide path that has been approved by the board, which means that the expense of management definition will be on a four-fold basis, so with that clarification, we feel comfortable that we are well on track to meet the glide path that has been approved by our board and has been sent to the regulator, so that's the update on expense of management. Your question on the network product, I would request Mr. Bhabatosh to address that.
Thank you, Supratim.
The concerned product that was highlighted, with the little limitation in network, offers customer 15% discount on the base premium. And is it limited to the preferred provider network of 450 cities and hospitals in 35 cities? The answer is no. The network is way more larger. It is just a few hospitals, a few hundred hospitals less than the overall network, which is accessible to the customer under this. But to answer your strategy on strategically, this is a step in the direction that you're familiar. You mentioned that you're familiar with the US market. The whole idea is to build out several tiers of networks. What we have launched is only the first tier.
And obviously, as the tier becomes smaller and customers have to give up more choice, going all the way up to perhaps a small product, there the level of premium discount will become larger and larger. So the whole idea is to be able to improve that. If it's a smaller network, you have better control of customer experience. You have better control of cost. And this is exactly the strategy that Bupa adopts globally. In many of their markets, while they don't necessarily have only closed network products, there are advantages to going to own-provision hospitals, which they do in a very advanced way in Spain. It's what Kaiser Permanente does in the United States. So something that Bupa is very familiar with and has executed on globally. This is the first step in that strategy, Supratim.
Awesome, and one last question for information. You mentioned that you have had discussions on this with your channel partners. Just wanted to understand, have you been being referred in line with the GWP, or are they still diluted?
Yeah, so just to answer, I'm Ankur Kharbanda. Just to answer this, we have been in discussions with all our partners. Case-to-case basis, largely, a lot of them have moved to the new methodology. There are some cases whereby we are looking at basis transfer loading, and we have seen that in a business case, if it works well for us, we are looking at all of those factors and deciding in terms of what we need to do.
A question would have moved to network. How do you get to that?
So we are still working through that, Supratim.
Okay. Understood.
So I think it's been a transition quarter. We probably need one more quarter to see where it finally settles.
No problem. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Next question is from Darshan from Motilal Oswal as well. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening, everyone. Good to hear from you from the last ratio and the transition to one-by-one basis. That was a significant improvement. Could you touch on the path for us in terms of how should we look at the ratio from here on on a reported basis? On a reported basis, actually, how the combined ratio looks from here on?
Thank you for that question. The thing is, if you were to ask me on a like-for-like basis, our combined ratio trajectory on an IFRS, we would have answered 95 in all caps, 95%. But because of this transition, we're still going through the planning process at this point, and I'd say it will probably take us some time as we also discussed. We're still learning the conversations with some of our partners in terms of how conditions will settle, so I think at the end of this quarter, on the reported basis with the current accounting, we will have better clarity, but broadly, as you mentioned, in terms of the fundamental economics of the business, if I look at IFRS for the old accounting, we will be on track to deliver to our five-year plan.
Thank you. Second question is, given the loss ratio on one-by-one basis, including one-by-one on nine months?
Yeah. With 1/365 basis, it is 63.4%. Without 1/365 basis, it is 61.1%.
Nine months.
Nine months, yes.
Okay. Thanks. The third question is on the expense that you mentioned, but from the leeway given by the regulator. But could you help us whether it could be driven by scale advantage? Where in which line items you would see the most significant improvement in terms of loss ratio improvement from here on? I think that while you would have that in your hand, how will you reach there? What are the key things that you think will be key things that will drive your expense of management towards the targeted way? And for nine months, what is the kind of method that we are on EOM basis?
Yeah, so for nine months, we are at 39% on like-for-like basis, so this is on full basis finished, and give us one is, of course, mix change. Second, all the investments we have done in the last two years in rewiring technology, so that's something which is going to give us, and it's giving us operating leverage, and mix are two different things, so channel mix, product mix, and this operating leverage.
We were going to be operating leverage on top of the other things that Vishwanath mentioned. Same time next year, our renewal book will be sizable, as we have discussed in the past. The scale of sale plus OpEx, which is for a total of 18-19%, that's what's going to help us get to the 36% EoM limit by next financial year.
Okay. The last question from my side would be the senior citizen bit. I don't know whether you agree with this in your opening comment, but the restriction of 10% per ITI, how do you think this will be kind of, and do you have a certainty of the senior citizen on annual basis either with increasing restrictions with a good number? How do you think about this?
Yeah. So currently, like you mentioned also, so we increase premium for all our mature products every year. And it is generally increased in high single digit or, let's say, in the 8-to-10 range. And this is more or less uniform across age and financial because we don't really cross-fertilize. Maybe some variation here and there. So in that sense, we don't think it is going to hurt us.
So is this a key concern to kind of IRDA wanting to control price? This was never brought up earlier of IRDA coming out and giving instruction on capping the price?
I think it's to do with the fact that those seniors as a constituency, there's been talks from all circles of what could we make it more affordable. I think the regulator is of the view that, especially at the stage when you don't have, when most people don't have income streams operating, they think that beyond 10% is what is socially appropriate. That's where this is coming from. Honestly, as long as the premiums are age-rated, which is the case, you've avoided cost subsidy. We believe a 10% annual rate increase is reasonable. Also, we have indicated that if you needed more than that, you would need to then technically justify and get the approval from the regulator.
So it's not that they have said that it's not permitted by our rules, just that you have to get permission and have a technical justification if you want to increase it by more than 10%. That's currently what it is, Darshan. Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from Roel from BSC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. I think the opportunity is good performance. Just to see the relationship to the PI increase on benefit or change of course for Niva Bupa Health. So I think first, related to OPEX and OPEX leverage under IFRS basis, how do you think OPEX cost to senior stabilizers like FY 2027, FY 2028, give us the lifetime around that? So absolute OPEX, just the question is, how do you think so those are the questions.
FYI, it's interesting that you asked this question because obviously, we had this discussion with Bupa as well during our team change around the board. They are very excited. As you all know, they are a very long-term shareholder in the company. Just in terms of increasing stake, it's too early to comment. It's something that frees them up to deploy their capital into what in our assessment is one of the top two opportunities for them globally in terms of capital deployment. I guess that's the answer as far as our own thinking is concerned. But too early to comment. But traditionally, this is how this will play out. But importantly, I think from our standpoint, given the 74% limit and we already have about 68% foreign holding, we feel that this will certainly provide liquidity to our stock as we move forward.
To the point on IFRS, I'm going to request Vishawa to give you a sample. What would be our steady-state combined ratios on an IFRS basis?
Yeah. So in terms of IFRS, if we have a steady-state combined ratio of, let's say, 97%-98%, we can make ROE in high teens. And we are very confident that steady-state basis will be able to achieve this. Now, expense and ratios, there may be some because of mixed change, there may be some play here. But broadly, the expense could be around 38% and balance is loss ratio.
When you say steady-state, it would be a 5% or longer?
Yeah. Longer than that.
Thank you. This is Behak from FG . Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So I have two or three questions. So first is, as the company is following 50/50 accounting method, so can you give any color on the impact on the NEP on account of the change in the 1/365 regulation? That is one. Second, I would like to ask, can you give the proportion of the long-term policies which you have? And thirdly, have you changed any kind of product structures, particularly due to the 1/365 regulation change?
Yeah. So your first question was on NEP. So on GWP, the impact is around INR 327 crores, which we have disclosed. We have not disclosed anywhere the financials in terms of old accounting. But combined ratio is something we have disclosed, which I can tell you is 129%. And the proportion of multi-year policies is, let's say, in early 20s, that's the rate we are experiencing. What do you want to talk about?
Yeah. In terms of long-term product specifically, there is no significant change that we've done. That is why the numbers appear stable, as you could see. So there is no significant change. However, we have launched new products in the interim with various partners incorporating more innovative, newer benefits to help consumers in different segments. That has also gotten added in the interim.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Question is from Nischint Chawathe. From Kotak Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question.
Nischint, your voice is not audible.
Is it now?
Yes.
So this is actually on the point that we were just discussing earlier about the regulator kind of publicly capping the inflation of premium. But I think at the same time, the regulator would come with the industry to get together and have a common platform for negotiation with customers. Do you really see that happening, or is it just very early days right now?
I think if you discuss perhaps what could be the most impactful line in that entire circular that they recently released, that they have said that the insurance industry shall endeavor to put in place a common network, and they've also alluded to the PM-JAY. I do feel from a regulatory position, in the interest of affordability, they do want to. Honestly, this is something that they've been nudging us for a while now for a variety of reasons. As an industry, we have not been able to take them up, but now there is an enabling provision for us to build a common network, but most importantly, with common tariffs along the lines of the PM-JAY program, as is articulated.
I do think this is potentially a game changer as far as the industry is concerned in terms of pulling together standardized tariffs and solving for inflation collectively as opposed to individually.
But do you see that sort of getting rolled out for IIT, or is it still early days? When does it really start to kind of? Did you say that next year's negotiations will be done for the next year's?
I can't comment on exact timing, Nischint. But what I can say is that there's a lot of interest and urgency to action in this. I mean, a lot of interest and urgency.
Sure. And just one small one is, just a reminder, on the insurance, you do want long-term policies. To what extent are we sort of feeding these policies, and how are we feeding the investments?
Yeah, Nischint. So we do the same treatment for reinsurance also as we do for our GWP. So in case there is a long-term policy, we account for GWP on a proportional basis. Similarly, we cede on a proportional basis. And the commission also we account for on the GWP policy.
Got it. Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next, Madhukar Ladha from Nuvama Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Thank you. So I'm interacting with you both. Maybe my knowledge is a little bit more basic, so maybe this question is a bit more basic. I wanted to understand the concept we do for accounting. And so why is it so hard to understand how exactly we need to do accounting? Is it even the long-term policies? How do we account? Because I understand that at least for the 5%, [audio distortion] , why does MC change in this accounting?
Yeah, sure. So in terms of the long-term policies, so earlier, it was considered whole amount as GWP. And let's say we were earning 50% of that and paying whole commission upfront. Now what happens is premium gets spread over the number of years. Let's say it's a two-year policy, so premium will get spread over two years. Now, you will only earn 50% of the first-year GWP or NWP after reinsurance. And the 50% will be earned over next year. And the next-year GWP that will flow in from here, it also will earn 50%, and 55% will go to next-to-next year. So there's a change. So what's happening is earning is reducing in the financial year, and the same will happen in the next financial year.
That's exactly.
Yes.
Yeah, that's right. And accounting for commission or any expense also upfront.
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So it is written as, I could not read the last line.
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Mr. Madhukar Ladha, I'm sorry to interrupt, but if it's not on hands-free, we request you to use the handset. There's a lot of noise and disturbance on your line. We can't hear you.
Can [audio distortion].
No, it's not better. Mr. Ladha, we request you to maybe call us back from a different number or a different device. We can't really hear you.
Okay.
We'll move to the next question in the meantime. The next question is from Shreya Shivani from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. I hope I'm audible. I wanted to understand from the distribution mix that you see that maybe there has been a slight decline in the bank channel mix for Niva, but that's very marginal between one and nine months. Then I wanted to understand how has the dynamics in the bank channel been for you? We heard a lot of concern on that channel, though it was more on the life insurance side. But what has been your experience in this channel with the different bank partners? And is there any concern or change in processes that you are noting in that channel? Thank you.
Yeah. Hi. On the bank side, as you said, the difference is marginal in terms of the channel mix. And that is also to do with the one-by-one methodology. Otherwise, if you look at it without one-by-one, it remains the same. There's no difference, so to say. In terms of bank insurance model working, the bank acceptance, their preference, priority on selling insurance, I think the only change which has happened is now it's getting more prudent day by day. The selling processes, they're refining the selling processes, which helps the customer, which helps us and the service as well. But from a perspective of getting to the end customer through this channel, I think the banks are also keen, and we are also very keen.
Got it, and just a follow-up on the channel strategy, so of the 172,000 individual agents that we've disclosed, how many of them would be the ones we've made them give examination, what do you call it, IC-38, the one for health insurance giving examination rather than just onboarding from life insurance agents? How many would be that?
Largely, as a rough idea, around most of our 10%-15% of our advisors will be onboarded by us as a new agent to us, and the rest would be from the industry, which we get from various life insurance companies and various general insurance companies. This is because this was last 10-year agent base. If you look at the recent two, three years, this number is higher because.
The new.
Yeah, new year. Last two years, we have been focusing on getting more new than the existing one from the market. So that number is higher.
Got it. So on the overall stock, it's the same channel, but the first agent closes is probably acquired. Therefore, you've done most of the examination thing, as in the KYC thing and all that stuff. Got it. Understood. This is very useful. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Vishal. He's an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks. My question was on the technology front. So the presentation and even the last presentation speaks a lot about the superior tech stack and things. So do you see this translating into a better combined ratio when compared to your peers, either in terms of superior underwriting and the loss ratio or more efficient in the expense ratio?
Yeah, definitely. So we have automated every level of customer journey, right, from onboarding to customer sourcing, automated underwriting, claims management, zero-human touch, and renewal process. And these metrics have been moving upwards in the last two years. And this is already yielding us results in terms of flattening the cost curve. So this is helping us and going to help us going forward.
So in the company, we run enabled technology and analytics. We run an initiative that we call zero-human touch. So whether you look at customer sourcing, underwriting, 51% of our policies are automated decisions, which means that they don't go through the hands of human beings, so to speak. So clearly, we would have needed many, many more human beings absent the intervention of tech and analytics in our process. So Vishwa has coined the whole point is this can help us flatten the cost curve and make sure that the cost curve is not linear to how our business is growing.
Absolutely. I definitely agree. We just wanted to get a sense of long-term. If you can give a range of how many bits of tech you're using, this would be the overall view.
We don't have that view that we can offer at this point in time, but maybe offline, we can have a discussion on how does this translate into?
Thanks.
Thank you.
Next question is from Pranav Gupta from Alchemy Capital Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I wanted to understand the accounting of the long-term stock curve. I also just stopped calling on the call. I joined late, so apologies for the repetition.
Yeah. So, accounting is at this stage. We are only considering in GWP proportional premium. For example, if it's a two-year policy, INR 100 GWP for two-year policies, we consider INR 50 GWP this year and INR 50 next year. So, commission in most of the cases is also on 1/365 basis. There may be some exception, and that's something which is under discussion and similarly, reinsurance is also on that proportion only. In this example, it looks like INR 50. So, we end up looking, and the rest of the accounting is similar in terms of disability, non-premium, etc.
The one thing I want to add and emphasize to what Vishwanath has said, the true reflection of our economics from an accounting standpoint is through IFRS accounting standpoint. We have consciously set our IFRS process. We have our two-year financials listed and published on an IFRS basis. We continue to do that every quarter. We will publish our annual audited IFRS accounts as of the end of the year. Number one. Number two, we also have policies that are published by Bupa on an IFRS basis, which is the global standard as far as insurance is concerned. And in India as well, the timeline is yet to be firmed up. But the quarter from April 2027 is what the regulator has indicated for the adoption of IFRS accounts in India.
So just in terms of the principles around matching, especially given that we are a high-growth business and a seasonal business, we do strongly feel that IFRS is the correct reflection of our underlying economics. So I would urge and draw your attention to our IFRS financials. Of course, the reported financials are available. The IFRS is what I would draw your attention to.
So absolutely understand and appreciate that, sir. I was just trying to understand how the accounting of GWP and NWP works. But keeping that aside, given that you mentioned that almost 20% of the policies are long-term policies, and with this change in accounting requirements, is there any thought of possibly bringing that proportion down, or are we comfortable with kind of changes that we need to do in terms of the review report? That's the question I was trying to understand.
I think the fundamental determinant of why we have been driving multi-year is delivers economic value because the retention is guaranteed. I think it's more a question of what makes business and economic sense. And the accounting, as I said, whether it's 1/365 or the old accounting, those are both not necessarily the best reflection of economics. And IFRS is what we continue to publish for all of you to get a sense of how the economic value of the business is playing out.
Right. And just one last question. Assuming that there's a senior citizen who's probably taken a long-term policy, this new construct of a 10% cap, how does the repricing on this sort of policy how would that work instrumentally? Would you be allowed to take a hike, say, to three-year policy? Would you be allowed to take a one-year hike, a four-year, one-year policy renewal, or how will that work? Do you have any understanding around that?
That's a good point. To be honest, we probably need to get that clarified from the regulator as well. The operating assumption is that it's enough to be on whatever is the last price she or he paid for. You make a valid point that there will be more than one year of inflation that needs to be caught up. I think that's worth clarifying, to be honest.
Sure. Thank you so much. I have no questions, sir. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rachna from Bupa. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hello?
Yes.
Yes. Yes. So I just wanted to know where does the last part of our growth come from? Is it from the renewal premium or new business? And if it is from the new business, what proportion of new business growth does it expect to come from? 14% inwards. So that's my first question. Second question is, how do the ticket prices for retail health policies in newer channels like digital or bank assurance compare to the agency-driven policies? If there is a decline in ticket price in these new channels. And third question would be, what proportion of the retail portfolio is expected to be repriced in the next year? And do you think price hikes can be a major driver for improvement? And that's it.
Sorry, I've not understood your first question fully. But on your second question on channel-by-channel ticket size, digital and agency are largely similar. It's not very different. Bupa is a little lower, 10%-15% lower. So digital and agency are in the same range of ticket size. Can you repeat your first question so that I can answer this question?
Yes. So where does the last part of the growth come from? Is it from the renewal, or is it from the new business? And what proportion of new business growth is expected to come from 14?
If you look at our growth rates, largely you would see that both renewal and fresh business is growing. You would get the details. We are growing at 50% for the first 10 months, which is a mix of both renewal and fresh. There is no difference between that. Largely, our growth comes from fresh business, but renewal definitely is there as well.
And sir, what would be your retail portfolio repriced in the next year? And do you think price hikes can be a major driver for improvement?
So we are in that process of annual operating translation. And repricing is the outcome of this. Generally, we reprice all the products that we mentioned for inflation and some changes. So that's the usual. One thing, that's the major driver of growth. So this is basically to take care of medical inflation, cost issue, and downturn.
Thank you. We move to the next question. Next question is from Supratim Datta from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks. I have two follow-ups. So firstly, on the loss ratio, you gave the nine-month FY 2025 numbers. Could you give us the nine-month FY 2024 IFRS numbers as well? That would be helpful. And secondly, there was a question on hospital tariffs, which was previously asked. And you indicated that there is a significant impetus on getting currently on board and hospitals. Do you think there is a hard bargaining by insurance companies? It's been somewhat counterproductive. And what has happened is the smaller hospitals have folded for being acquired by larger hospitals. And hence, their bargaining power has increased. How do you balance this? How do you balance this shift of power, which is happening from smaller hospitals towards larger hospitals' networks? Because a hard bargain typically gets the network accelerated. Those were my two questions.
I think on your first question, the loss ratio, which we mentioned for this year 64.2%, the last year for nine months was similar. This is the point here and there. Otherwise, more or less similar. Talking about the big question.
On the second point, two parts. One is, as Krishnan sir mentioned, there is a lot more focus, urgency with regards to negotiating standardized tariff across provider network in India, largely driven by the recent directive of the regulator. And the regulator has been nudging the industry to do so. There has been some progress made, but we do see the pace of progress to move up substantially now on. And in terms of the negotiation, we have not seen much of acquisitions of smaller providers by large providers. There has been some consolidation, but largely within the sphere of tertiary acquiring a tertiary, not a smaller provider. We don't feel it would have any significant impact, adverse impact to any of the portfolios. In fact, standardization will bring in a lot more clarity, not just to insurers and to the customers as well.
It would bring in what we call as more price predictability or cost predictability from provider, of which the benefit is premium stability, which will directly pass on to the consumer.
Thank you. Thank you. Next question is from Madhukar Ladha from Nuvama Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Sorry, sir. I'm just taking some notes. I'm getting some problems in my line.
Are they audible and clear now?
Yes.
I don't know if the investor is able to hear. Just on your sense of first claim, your experience of first claim. This is a 3% and this is a group. How much of this is the employer-employee, and how much is credit-linked? Could you also help me understand where is the credit-linked coming from? We have a direct business or brokers of about 29%. Which type of business do you get mainly from brokers? What is the other channel, which is also quite big at 20%? The smaller others are small, less than 1%. Yeah. The brokers of 29%, what business do we get from there?
So the broker is a combination of brokers like Marsh, Aon, like I was working with this, as well as digital brokers like RenewBuy, Policybazaar, Turtlemint. So it's a combination of both retail broking as well as consulting. In terms of the split of the 30%, I would say roughly 1/3, 2/3 is what it is. 1/3 towards corporate and 2/3 towards the asset-linked products.
2/3 of the asset-linked products. And where do you get most of this 20% from?
It's across banks, non-banks, so it's a very diversified mix of partners that we get.
Mainly would be banks and corporate agents?
Banks as well as non-banks.
Non-banks and corporate agents, right? So BFP?
BFPs, yeah. It could be brokers or corporate agents.
Then of the corporate 29%, which is brokers, the last part of it would be what part of that would be corporate, and what part of that would be retail? Because I'm guessing retail would be the biggest share Policybazaar.
Yeah. Retail would be the larger share, the 29%, but we do have a fast-growing corporate group as well.
And how much would be retail?
We'll have to figure that out.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you, Mad . That was the last question in queue. I would now like to hand the conference back to the management team for closing comments.
So thank you very much to all of you for your patient hearing as well as your very thoughtful questions. We appreciate it. Just to summarize, the last quarter has been a quarter of transition for the industry and us, and I do believe we have, to a very large extent, been successful in navigating the transition, but still work to do once more.
Thank you very much. On behalf of I-Sec, please accept the conference. Thank you for joining us, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.