Switching Health Insurance Plans in India

Switching Health Insurance Plans in India

The Health Insurance penetration is India is very low. It is right now just 15% in all over India only. And that’s why IRDA is planning to do some major changes in the health insurance industry.

According to Economic Times,

One of the important initiatives of the regulator is the proposed portability of health insurance. This is to ensure that a customer continues to enjoy benefits under his health policy even if he wishes to change his insurance provider for genuine reasons.
In the current scenario, a customer is more or less wedged to an insurance company, given that if he chooses another insurer during renewal, his policy starts afresh with all the waiting periods commencing again. For the uninitiated , waiting period is the time frame during which some of the claims shall not be payable under the health policy. For most new health policies there is a waiting period of 30 days under which no claim can be made other than accidents. Besides, there is also a one or two years waiting period for diseases like cataract, hysterectomy etc. And for other diseases which may have been existing prior to taking the policy commonly known as pre-existing diseases, the waiting period is for four years.
In simple words, policyholders will no longer be compelled to renew their health policies with their existing insurance company for fear of the waiting period starting all over again. As and when Irda introduces the portable health product in the market, customers who opt for such products will have the freedom to shift insurers without worrying about losing their continuity benefits.

This is excellent. I mean from now onwards, we don’t have to wait for 2 years waiting period when we plan to change our health insurer. All the benefits from our previous health insurers will be continued even if we change the our insurer.

This is really a revolutionary change in the Indian Health Insurance sector.