BENGALURU: The significance of health insurance policies has never been more felt than now, when the world is challenged by a pandemic. The governments worldwide have stepped in to ensure that treatments such as mental illnesses, telemedicine are now included in the general health policy.
In India, insurance regulator Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has asked insurers to standardise health policies by making them more inclusive and customer-oriented. IRDAI came up with the new provision after the Supreme Court in June directed it to treat the mental illnesses as physical illness while providing the covers.
The new regulations came into effect on October 1, 2020. The standardisation of the health policies now includes redefining the pre-existing diseases on the basis of symptoms duration and onset of illness, not rejecting any claim after eight years of issuance of the policy, deciding on the claim within 30 days from the date of its receipt, coverage of telemedicine and mental illnesses as well as modern treatments like chemotherapies, implants etc.
While insurers are now working to add these new features to the policies, industry officials say that the same will result in over pricing of these covers. Take the case of mental health illnesses, the current health insurance policies would entail coverage of hospitalisation and OPDcharges (in some cases) for any psychiatric treatment.
“The new health covers will dig deeper holes in the customer’s pockets since they will now have to pay higher premiums. However, on the brighter side, the health insurance policies will offer a wide range of services especially the telemedicine fees and mental health treatments, the demand for which has surged during the pandemic,” said Hemant Kumar, a Bengaluru-based insurance sales official.
For an ordinary customer, although the new regulations do end the ambiguity on policy settlements and inclusion of various disorders, the higher pricing of the policies will act as a dampener in the pandemic times. “We are already burdened with paying EMIs amid the current recessionary times. Although buying a health insurance cover seems like a good idea right now, higher pricing / premiums should not be a pain-point,” said Ankita Dhawan, a techie.