IRDAI felt the need to revisit various areas of the health insurance framework such as products, distribution, pricing, claims experience, and rural and social obligations to understand the reason for the lower penetration of health insurance.
a framework such as products, distribution, pricing, claims experience, and rural and social obligations to understand the reason for the lower penetration of health insurance.
The aim is to streamline the entire process to cater to the growing demands of the health insurance market and also to gear up insurance companies to meet such customer demands. Some of the features which IRDAI may incorporate soon are:
Policyholders could soon get access to long-term plans, health savings accounts, and single-premium health insurance policies.
- Employers could also be allowed to avail of long-term group health insurance policies for their employees.
- Long-term health insurance policies could carry a tenure of 3-5 years and a health savings account or amount will create a fund over 5-15 years to finance the insured’s healthcare expenses during their post-retirement years.
- If the policyholder pays an annual premium of Rs 50,000 then a small portion (around Rs. 5,000) will go towards buying a high deductible risk cover and the remaining amount will be invested to generate returns. No premature withdrawals will be permitted from this fund for meeting personal expenses.
This should come as a relief to those individuals who avoid buying health insurance just because the policy does not offer any ‘returns’ or money back.
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