With rising healthcare costs and the growing vulnerability to critical illnesses, having a comprehensive insurance protection is a necessity today. The cost of treating life-threatening diseases is much higher compared to the cost of treating common ailments,” says Roopam Asthana, CEO & whole time director, Liberty General Insurance Ltd (LGIL), a joint venture between Liberty Citystate Holdings PTE Ltd – a group company of Liberty Mutual Insurance group, a diversified global insurer with over 900 offices across the world, headquartered in the US, Enam Securities, and DP Jindal group. “Keeping this in mind, we have launched ‘Critical Connect’ health insurance policy which is another step towards our endeavour to contribute to the financial well-being of our customers. The policy provides financial support and wealth protection to our customers by offering a lump-sum amount on the diagnosis of a critical illness which may require specialised treatment for an extended period of time,” adds Asthana. He was the founding employee of the company and has played a pivotal role in the formation of the joint venture, along with the licensing of the company. With an experience that spans over 25 years, he has worked as CEO, SBI Cards and Payment Services Pvt. Ltd. and GE Capital Business Process Management Services Pvt. Ltd. LGIL commenced operations in 2013 with the aim to provide comprehensive retail, commercial and industrial insurance solutions. Today, the company has an employee strength of 1,100 plus with presence across over 100 locations in India. Its partner network consists of about 5,100 hospitals and more than 4,300 auto service centres. The company offers health and personal accident insurance, car and two-wheeler insurance, employee compensation insurance, commercial insurance, fire and engineering insurance, marine insurance and other miscellaneous insurance products in India. In a bid to expand its health insurance product portfolio and provide insurance cover for up to 60 critical illnesses (CIs) such as heart or major organ transplant, kidney failure, cancer, brain surgery, CIs related to HIV/AIDS, head trauma, blindness, and multiple sclerosis among others, LGIL launched ‘Critical Connect’ at a virtual product launch ceremony. “This health insurance policy will enable customers to manage most of the expenses arising due to critical illnesses. Unlike a regular health insurance policy, where the customer makes a claim based on the actual expenses incurred on hospitalisation, the Critical Connect health insurance policy will pay a lump-sum amount to the customer on the diagnosis of listed critical illness covered under this policy,” says Asthana.