Health/ mediclaim insurance portability procedure & benefits
Are you unsatisfied with your present insurance company? Now can you port your insurance policy or mediclaim policy without losing its benefits. Visit this page and learn more.
Like mobile number portability, health insurance portability has also been introduced in India w.e.f. 1st July, 2011. Let's read in detail that what is health insurance portability,
Health insurance portability had been introduced in India on 1st July, 2011 with a circular of IRDA (Insurance Regulatory Development Authority) stating the guidelines for health insurance portability or mediclaim insurance portability in India. Let's read about insurance portability in detail.Define health insurance portability/ mediclaim insurance portability
It means porting of insurance policy without losing its benefits. In other words, the policy holder can switch his policy from present insurer to another insurer without any fear of losing its original benefits. If a person wants higher amount of policy than the existing policy at the time of insurance portability, then the waiting period shall apply for excess amount of policy and the relief will be limited only to the pre-existing amount of policy.
Let's understand this with the help of an example. A person is continuously renewing his policy of Rs. 5 lakhs for last 5 years and now he wants to port his policy to some other insurer. But he also wants to take insurance cover of higher amount, say Rs. 8 lakhs. Thus the waiting period for additional Rs. 3 lakhs will be same as in case of a fresh policy and the portability relief on this will be limited to Rs. 5 lakhs only. How to port an insurance policy
The procedure of health insurance portability or procedure to port insurance policy is as follow:
- The policy holder have to fill up an application form of the new insurance company in the usual form similar to as in case of fresh application.
- He has to provide his current health details as well as other details require in the application form.
- He may also be required to attach any document related to previous health policy which you have to port.
- New insurer access the risks in the policy in the usual underwriting
form; and then decide whether to approve the policy or not.
- If the policy gets approved, then the new insurer will provide relief to policy holder for the waiting period which he has already passed through in the previous policy to the maximum limit of the previous assured sum of the policy. Let's understand this step with the help of a simple example. A person is renewing his policy continuously from last 4 years with his insurer 'A'. Now the new insurer 'B' has waiting period of 5 years for its list of ailments. In such a case, after switching to insurer 'B' under insurance portability, the waiting period shall be limited to 1 year only as he was already renewing policy from last 4 years.Advantage of health insurance portability
- If the policy holder is not satisfied with his present insurance provider, then he can 'kick out' the present one and can switch to new insurance company.
- Insurance portability has undoubtedly given birth to more healthy competition in this sector, thus enforcing insurance companies to serve more benefits and facilities to their customers.
- Customers are likely to face better claim experience in the long run scenario.
- Due to increased competition, insurers are likely to reduce their prices or premiums with additional benefits to attract consumers.
- Portability has overcome the drawback wherein the insurer face hindrance (like long waiting period) while taking new policy).