New Delhi, Feb 17 (IANS): Flipkart, India's homegrown e-commerce marketplace, has partnered with ICICI Lombard to offer Hospicash insurance to consumers.

Compared to the standard indemnity health insurance policies, Hospicash is a benefit offering that allows consumers to avail a fixed amount for each day of hospitalisation. The fixed daily amount enables consumers to pay for incidental medical or emergency expenses. It will cover both accidental hospitalisations or planned surgeries and treatment.

According to an industry research, the direct average out-of-pocket expenditure during hospitalisation in India ranges between Rs 4,452 to Rs 31,845 for a person, whereas the average loss of income due to hospitalisation is estimated to be around Rs 8,164.

The new insurance product will provide consumers an extra allowance to not just cover emergency medical expenses' but also travel and post-discharge costs and compensation for loss of income during hospitalisation.

Sanjeev Mantri, Executive Director, ICICI Lombard said, "Our Hospicash insurance is an affordable and convenient offering that can help consumers meet their daily incidental expenses during hospitalisation."

Ranjith Boyanapalli, Head - Fintech and Payments Group, Flipkart, said, "We are consistently striving to offer value-driven solutions to our consumers. As consumers increasingly understand the importance of health insurance, we want to ensure that Flipkart is their one stop solution to provide them services for a holistic health protection plan."

Flipkart has, over the past year, branched out into insurance services for life, health, motor, cyber and devices/appliances, through partnerships with some of the country's insurance service providers.