Health Insurance New Rule: The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has removed the age limitation to buy health insurance. Now, with this withdrawal, individuals would be able to buy new health insurance even at 65 years of age. Previously, this group was restricted from getting access to new insurance plans.
According to an IRDAI notification, insurers will have to come up with health insurance products that take into consideration the unique needs of demographic groups, especially senior citizens, students, children, and maternity needs. This directive encourages the broad scope of the products meant to target the variety of life stages and health needs of insurance companies.
The insurance regulatory body has also made it mandatory for the insurance firms to introduce some policies to benefit senior citizens. The insurance regulatory body has instructed to open special channels for the smooth and speedy disposal of claims and grievance redressal.
Enhanced access for high-risk health conditions
In its quest to develop more humane and caring healthcare in India, the new regulations proposed by the IRDAI also pay heed to an increase in access to health insurance for those affected by severe medical conditions such as cancer, heart, renal failure, and AIDS.
These diseases cannot be grounds on which insurance companies deny policies. Further, the waiting period for mandatory pre-existing conditions has been reduced from 48 months to 36 months by IRDAI. After this period, all pre-existing conditions must be covered, as mentioned in the policy wording, irrespective of whether it has been disclosed at the time of policy initiation or not.
The law also makes it illegal for insurance companies to deny claims due to pre-existing conditions after this period.
The new guidelines include a few more relevant rules. Henceforth, no insurance company could offer an indemnity-based health policy where the company has to pay the hospital expenditure. From now on, they can only provide benefit-based policies under which a fixed amount gets paid to the policyholder in case a covered illness is being claimed. To make health insurance inclusive to all the country’s citizens, and to give a healthy and secure tomorrow to all, IRDAI claims such sweeping changes.
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Published: 21 Apr 2024, 11:08 AM IST
