Online Policy Renewal
If you do have a health insurance policy, you might know that these are renewed on an annual basis, not like the life insurance policies where it is valid for term till maturity considering that you are regularly paying the premium.
Earlier renewal of insurance policy takes a lot of time visiting the office of the insurance companies or your insurance agents. But worry not, things have changed quite since that era. All thanks to the internet!
The internet has influenced every aspect of our living. This is true of insurance policies that can be renewed online, thereby, saving policyholders the hassle of having to submit physical documents and queuing outside insurance companies to submit their renewal proposals. Policyholders have to simply log on to their choice of insurance companies or register their details on insurance aggregator sites, type out their policy number, read through the benefits, terms and conditions by their insurers and apply for renewal accordingly.
Irrespective of the kind of policy including life or general insurance policies, application for online insurance renewal and subsequent payment towards the same is now possible.
Health Insurance Portability
Before understanding the concept of health insurance portability, it is important to realise what the concept of “Portability” means in the context of health insurance and its significance to policyholders in the long run.
Every health insurance plan that you buy from any insurance company must involve a level of satisfaction regarding the benefits promised by the insurer in addition to the terms and conditions laid down by it. In the event of dissatisfaction, the insured looks for ways to buy a similar policy from another insurance company that promises greater benefits in lieu of low premium charges.
Portability is actually the right allowed by the current insurance company to their policyholders to move to another insurance company while retaining the existing credit and benefits regarding pre-existing disorders, waiting period and other exclusions that are time-bound pursuant to the original policy bought. The benefit of portability can be availed by health insurance policyholders irrespective of whether they had bought an individual health insurance plan or paid for a family cover health policy.
Also, the policyholders can choose to move from one insurance company to the other or from one plan to another plan sold by the same insurer. However, policyholders can seek the advantage of health insurance portability subject to the condition that they had towards premiums of the previous policy regularly and had maintained the policy sans any break.
The concept of “Health Insurance Portability” was first introduced by the IRDAI in 2011, thus, allowing policyholders to switch from one insurer to the other while retaining benefits including no-claim bonus (NCB) and free medical checkups promised by the previous health insurance policy.
Caveat:
“Nothing Good in Life Comes for Free”, which means that the policyholders can avail the benefits of health insurance portability subject to certain conditions. To secure the interests of the insurance companies, the IRDAI allows them the right to reject any port-in requests. Also, all the requests made by customers for portability would be treated as new. This means that the health details and past insurance claim details would be scrutinised by the underwriter of the new insurer. Only after a detailed evaluation of the risk exposure, the new insurance company would determine the premium charges that would be applicable to the health insurance cover sought by their customers. The health insurance proposal may be rejected or accepted post the risk assessment by the new insurer. In the event of rejection, the policyholder would be required to continue with the existing insurance service provider.
