Not-for-profit
Year launched: 1970 and BeforeBAIF's health programs seek to address the needs of families living below the poverty line through promotion of hygiene, sanitation, immunization, nutrition, maternal and child care and family welfare.
Women's Self Help Groups
For the past decade, BAIF has promoted the founding of women's self-help groups (SHGs). SHGs consist of 10-20 women and function as a savings and credit facility. BAIF uses these SHGs as a platform for training, capacity building and the flow of information on health and hygiene. Special attention is paid to issues of reproductive health.
Health Insurance
The impact of severe illness on the prosperity BAIF clients - who are primarily agricultural workers - and their households, is high due to the direct costs of treatment as well the indirect costs of lost income. Women in the SHGs have also stated that it is difficult for them to claim medical treatment, as their husbands do in case of expensive illness. In 1998, BAIF decided to responded to this situation with a pilot project around their center in Urulikanchan.
BAIF developed and implemented their own community health insurance model. The product is a partner-agent model providing voluntary, group health and life insurance. BAIF's primary policyholders are women ages 18-70 participating in an SHG. While non-members are not explicitly excluded, everyone who has opted to take-up the voluntary health and life insurance product has been a member of a self- help group.
Women and their families are covered by the policy and receive hospitalization up to US$113.65 (Rs. 5,000), concessionary prices for primary care at a BAIF center, and life insurance for the policyholder. Childbirth is excluded in the first nine months of members.
The premium is US$2.91 (Rs.131) plus an administrative fee of US$0.55. Policyholders give their money to the group representative who then puts the money into the bank account of the BAIF SHG Insurance Committee. Members are reimbursed for their claims following the completion of the appropriate paperwork and approval by the BAIF SHG Insurance Committee.
Membership grew when family members were added in 2004. Claims not fully settled are eligible for reimbursement in future months when balances are positive. This relative benefit plan ensures that the scheme never runs a deficit; the claims loss ratio (the share of premiums used to pay claims) was 92 percent in 2005.
