Impact of Influencing Factors on the Health Insurance Choices of Policyholders in Chengalpattu District, Tamilnadu

Abstract

Taking health insurance policy is most important for people in the present scenario, since medical expenses goes up, hence health insurance premium ensures quality medical services to needy people at lower cost. Many factors influence the people to take purchase decision on health insurance policies. Hence, the researcher concentrated in this concept. For this purpose the researcher selected Chengalpattu district in the state of Tamilnadu as study area, from where five private health insurance companies were selected and from each company a total of 160 policyholders were taken as sample, it resulted to a total sample size of 800 respondents. Primary data were collected from the respondents by using a structured interview schedule. The researchers applied the statistical tools of descriptive statistics, factor analysis and Chi-square test for analysing the data. The study found that that the factors “Fear and cautiousness factors” and “Health related factors” had high level of influence on the respondents to buy health insurance policies. Significant differences were found in level of influence with variables of gender, age, number of family members with the age of above 50 years, education and income level of the respondents. No significant differences were found with the factors, marital status, primary earning member of the family, family size and occupation. Significant differences were found in level of influence with the factor whether the respondent made claim earlier, amount of premium paid by the respondents, amount of policy, number of times claim was made.