How efficient is Indian health insurance sector: An SBM‐DEA study

The aims of this study are to investigate the technical efficiency and productivity growth of the Indian health insurance sector and to test the conglomeration hypothesis versus the strategic focus hypothesis for providing new evidence on economies of scope. This study has analyzed the efficiency and productivity performance of the 27 health insurance companies from the period 2015 to 2019 using slack‐based measurers (SBM) of data envelopment analysis. The Malmquist index has been used to evaluate the productivity of health insurers. The Mann–Whitney test is used to investigate the conglomeration hypothesis versus the strategic focus hypothesis. Findings indicate that Indian health insurance industry experienced significant fluctuations in mean technical efficiency during the study period. Almost 30% of the health insurers operated efficiently during the study period. Almost half of the health insurers experienced growth during this period. The Indian health insurance sector grew at an annual average rate of 3.78% during our study period. We further found that the stand‐alone health insurers operated more efficiently than the health insurance units of the general insurers in the Indian health insurance sector. This study is first of its kind that brings into light the operating characteristics, efficiencies, and productivity of the Indian health insurance sector. This study will be helpful to the regulators, decision makers, and other stakeholders. The policy makers of health insurance companies can improve their efficiency after knowing the reasons of inefficiency. The managers of inefficient health insurers may expedite measures to improve efficiency by better utilization of existing resources and technological improvements.