Health insurance portability
One must have heard about Mobile number portability and its benefits. It makes us possible to switch from one telecom service provider to another, without changing our current mobile phone number. Insurance regulator IRDA has brought out a new regulation which would allow a Health Insurance policyholder to switch his or her Health Insurer in case they are not happy with them. Healthcare insurance portability allows customers to switch from one insurance provider to another without losing the no-claim benefit and the waiting period. This means if a customer is not happy with their present healthcare insurance provider and yet sticking to it because they don’t want to lose the discounts and other waiting period benefits earned by them, but with Health Insurance portability these can be transferred to your new health insurance service provider.
Lets illustrate this with an example. Mr X has health insurance in ABC company but wants to change his insurer. This is because after going through the features of his individual health insurance plan he realised another company is offering a better plan or lesser waiting period for pre-existing diseases or fully cashless insurance, etc. Well, we all would want the best mediclaim offer for ourselves. But Mr X is unable to change his insurer because if he shifts he will lose the 30 days waiting period which he has already covered, lose the no-claim discounts earned and lose on his additional sum assured bonus which he has earned by not claiming. With the help of healthcare insurance portability, he can now join another health insurance provider of his choice without losing on the above mentioned benefits.
So, what exactly is portable with healthcare insurance portability? Earlier, if customer wanted to change their health insurer, he would have to buy a new policy. Despite completing the waiting period of his previous insurer, customer would still have to complete the fresh waiting period of 30 days again. However with health insurance portability no waiting period will have to be served if the customer switches his insurance company. Please note, Healthcare insurance portability does not cover the transfer of insurance product benefit of the previous or add-ons.
To make the most out of Healthcare insurance portability one needs to scan through all the possible individual healthcare insurance plans for finding the best healthcare insurance offer. One can scan these options on our website policybazar.com and compare healthcare insurance quotes. There are various healthcare insurance players like ICICI health insurance, Max health insurance, Aplollo munich health insurance, TATA AIG health insurance, etc. If you are looking for best family mediclaim policy, then find out if they cover your parents, have maternity benefit, etc. Indian market is full of choices when it comes to family mediclaim policies and hence, the customers should try to go through as many options as possible to finalise the best health insurance offer suited for them.
Health Insurance Portability directly affects insurers since they are the ones who will be initiating changes and upgrading products and services.
In the future, with the advent of Health Insurance Portability the consumer may have to face with:
More Competition
With customers having the choice to switch, insurers will certainly notch up everything. To get more market share more competition will ensue leading to product innovation as well as improved services.
Customer Engagement
Apart from products, major differentiating factor would be services. The insurer’s will improve and set new benchmarks in services to pull customers to their brand. More customer relationship building activities will be implemented.
Logistics
Since customer can switch to new insurer, a lot of data would be shared between insurers. The process is complicated since data everywhere is not centralized. However in long term, health insurance portability would lead to more transparency.
Unethical Practices
Health insurance portability could also mean more frauds and unprofessional conduct. An insurance agent might not tell all coverage while driving customer to switch product. Example- your previous insurer might cover more critical illness or have less exclusions as compared to new insurer which your agent might not mention.
Conclusion:
Health Insurance portability is customer centric on the part of IRDA. Health insurance portability gives the flexibility to customers who were earlier stuck with their insurer even if they were dissatisfied by their insurer service. However it must be also understood that health insurance products vary across insurers and all benefits do not get transferred. So one must deeply consider both the service offered as well as product’s benefit and then only take health insurance portability.