Manipal Education & Medical Group (MEMG) will increase its stake to 51 per cent in health insurance joint venture with American insurance giant Cigna Corporation. Chairman Ranjan Pai is committing $71 million (Rs 500 crore) towards additional share purchase and expansion plans at a time when several Indian business groups are retreating from the health insurance sector. The name of the joint venture will be changed to ManipalCigna Health Insurance from Cigna TTK as the group is buying out the remaining stake held by conglomerate TTK. The deal comes after MEMG, which runs one of the largest private hospital chains in the country with 6,000 beds, initially picked up a 16 per cent stake last year. Cigna, which had revenues of $49 billion in 2018, had entered the Indian market through the JV with TTK Group in 2014. Since then, it has relied on the bancassurance model of tying up with banks for distributing its product and reported a premium income of approximately $70 million (Rs 487) crore in the financial year ending 31 March 2018. Going forward the company will look to ramp up its distribution network of 20,000 advisors, 28 branches, 250 major brokers and 7,000 points of sales. One of the major areas will also be building out a digital push for distribution besides seamless customers experience from onboarding to claim settlement to hospitalisation.