Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Company has recently expanded its network hospitals to provide cashless access to its health insurance customers across the country. The company has now tied up with 1021 hospitals in India.

Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Limited is a 74: 26 joint venture between Sundaram Finance and Royal & SunAlliance, in accordance with IRDA regulations. Royal Sundaram, which has had a paid-up capital of Rs140 crores, is the first non-life insurer to be awarded a licence by the IRDA.

In 2001, Royal Sundaram was the first private general insurance company to offer cashless facility in health insurance. This cashless facility was developed after extensive research, which highlighted the difficulties people face when trying to claim hospital bills from insurers.

Since inception, the company has registered a significant growth in the health insurance portfolio, servicing individual and group customers across urban and rural India. During 2006-07, the health Insurance portfolio grew by over 90 per cent.

Antony Jacob, managing director, Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance, said, "We currently have tie ups with many of the big hospitals in the country. Our aim is to ensure that a Royal Sundaram policyholder and his family benefit from quality treatment at hospitals that share our vision of excellent customer service. To achieve this, we will be further expanding our hospital network over the coming months.