Not satisfied with your health insurer? Renew your plan with a different health insurance provider

People of India are more or less familiar with the concept of the portability of mobile number. Similarly, health insurance portability has also come into existence in India. The IRDA has made it possible for policyholder to shift their health policy on renewal from one insurance provider to another, without having to lose any benefits.

This ground-breaking step has been greeted positively by most policy holder in India as they can continue with the least base cover which remains static across all insurance providers. In the past, when a policy holder fell sick during the term of an earlier policy term, the new insurer considered it as pre-existing condition. This is the reason why many insured people, especially senior citizens found it utterly difficult to switch to a new insurer even if they were dissatisfied with the incompetency of their exiting insurers.

However, things have changed now; and have changed for the better. Now, you can rightfully change your insurer at the time of renewing your existing health cover. Even after being shifted to a new insurance provider you can still enjoy all the benefits that you have accumulated during your policy term with your previous insurer. With the advent of health insurance portability in India you don't have to lose benefits such as waiting period to cover pre-existing conditions.

The same rule applies when you switch from one health plan to another with the same insurer as well. 

Privileges of insured people

IRDA have come up with a set of privileges to facilitate policy holders so that they can make the most of the concept of portability of insurance plan. The followings are the advantages that insured people would definitely appreciate;

• All insured persons can shift their policy to and from any specialized health insurance firm or any general insurance provider
• Both individual and family health policies are portable under the new scheme
• New insurers must provide insured people with the credit that they have accumulated with their previous insurers pertaining to the duration of waiting period for pre-existing diseases
• Insured people are entitled to receive up to the sum insured under previous policy as a minimum by the new insurer
• Both new and old insurers have to complete the shifting of policy within the deadline proposed by the IRDA

Conditions that insured people need to fulfill

• Insured people can switch their health covers only at the time of renewal. This means they will start a fresh insurance period with a new insurer. 
• All terms of the new health policy such as the the premium amount will be deiced by the new insurance provider  except for the credit for waiting period
• Policy holders must do the followings 45 days prior to the date of renewal

1. Write a letter to their previous insurance provider making a request for a shift
2. They also have to specify the name of the company to which they want to switch their existing health plans
3. Most importantly, policy holders need to renew their plans without any break. A 30 day grace period is available if shifting is under process. 

IRDA Facilitation

IRDA has lately come up with an online facility to avail and maintain data regarding all health insurance plans provided by insurance firms to individual policy holders. This enables new insurer to which insured people are keen to shift to access tall the required information so that it can be accessed by the new company to which a policyholder wishes to port his policy. Furthermore, new insurers can also gain information on history of health plans of the policyholder.

Some disadvantages of porting health plan to new insurer

In the past, majority of health covers come with one year contract. Policy holders that don't make any claim are usually entitled for various forms of bonuses such as premium reduction or higher sum assured for same premium. Under the present scenario, when an insured person changes his or her insurer he or she would miss out on bonuses and have to continue paying the base rate. The portability will also going to impose problems for senior citizens as most insurance providers are not keen to sell new health plans to elderly people. In essence, the portability diminishes the benefits of customized health plans.

However, these downsides matter little compared to the set of privileges that insured people can enjoy now. Health insurance portability further ensures that online comparison portals will play more significant role to decide on the perfect deal.

This has proved to be gift for a millions of policyholders in India. This move ensures that the insurance firms in India can no longer take their clients for granted. Insured people in India are not forced to stick to any particular insurance company on permanent basis. They can shift their health policies at the time of renewal when their existing insurers would stop covering the risks. Most importantly, these insurance providers will come up with more customer-friendly insurance product in order to to retain their policy holders for years and they cannot turn down any claim frivolously as well.