The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) has confirmed about the latest service in the medical insurance field, "Health insurance portability". The service will facilitate all health policy holders to switch insurers. The plan was earlier proposed to come into operation from July 1 last year. However, this was delayed for some months due to certain unresolved disputes with various insurance companies in India.
The IRDA Chairman J Hari Narayan has confirmed that the insurance sector is all set to implement the health portability plan. Mr. Narayan has also confirmed this on the side-lines of a CII meet last year.
Health portability is an important factor as it would help consumers to switch their service provider at the same time, retaining the basic health cover. As the health insurance portability rues would have it, can get certainly credit for the time they have already spent for covering all kinds of pre-existing disease in conjunction with bonus accrued to him from his past insurer.
Mr. Narayan has also confirmed the scheming of regulations by IRDA for the highest net asset value (NAV) guaranteed products that are mostly seen as a "risk products". He said that his major concern as a regulator is the communication mechanism for highest NAV product ultimately leading to buyer’s misconception of the buyer that makes it quite a risky product. He also said that IRDA will get details about the matter soon and will also take a regulatory decision.
The highest NAV guaranteed products provide consumers guaranteed return based on the highest NAV achieved by a policy during the entire term of plan. Presently, around 20 per cent of the entire Unit-Linked Pension Plans (ULIP) encompasses transactions from highest NAV products.
Talking about the IPO strategies for life insurance corporations, Narayan said the rules are almost final. As said by the industry body CII, health insurance market in India is expected to touch Rs 70,000 crore with a cover of 500 million people by the year 2020!