Page 15 - Insurance Times October 2020

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Proposed health data possible for individuals to be treated "The Industry has seen a substantial
policy puts question mark anywhere. increase in Corona-specific claims, both
in general as well as Corona-specific
on privacy concerns "Data fiduciaries" will be allowed to claims," Pankaj Arora, Managing Di-
collect and store "sensitive personal
India doesn't have a law protecting data". This could include financial infor- rector and CEO, Raheja QBE General
personal data. There are no specific mation; physical, physiological and Insurance, said.
penalties for failing to keep such data mental health data; sex life and sexual Even though there has been a slowdown
secure. A proposed law on Personal orientation; genetic data; caste or in the number of new Covid-19 cases in
Digital Privacy Protection has been tribe data; and "religious or political recent weeks, data from many States
pending since 2018, and drafts in the belief or affiliation". It's impossible to show that the spread of the pandemic
public domain raise concerns about understand why much of this is neces- still remains largely unabated, leading
widespread surveillance. sary. The draft also suggests that even to a rush for insurance.
The recently released draft "Health the local pharmacy could be consid- The pandemic has changed the
Data Management Policy" of the Na- ered a fiduciary. This means higher mindset of the people towards health
tional Digital Health Mission is sup- probabilities of data leakage since it's insurance.
posed to specifically guard medical very unrealistic to assume every fidu- "We are seeing an uptick of 30 per cent
data. This is built on the foundations of ciary will be secure. to 40 per cent in the health insurance
legislation that doesn't exist. It also Importantly, this data will be shared business, especially from millennials
seems to be more concerned about with the government, and "agencies and women who understand the sig-
monetisation of such data, than with designated by government". nificance of health insurance now and
the protection of privacy. Anonymised or de-identified data will are coming forward to buy it," said
The proposed health policy refers to citi- be made available in aggregated form Arora. There has also been good inter-
zens as "data principals"; hospitals and for facilitating health and clinical re- est and a marginal increase in sales for
doctors are "health information provid- search, academic research, archiving, the Corona Kavach policy.
ers"; government agencies are "health statistical analysis, policy formulation, "As per our data, the average claim
information users". The policy envisages the development and promotion of di- size in Corona-specific covers is hover-
an integrated data storage system. agnostic solutions, etc. ing around Rs. 2 lakh," he said.

Records held by different service pro- Average Claims size for The data from Bajaj Allianz General
viders will be in common formats and Insurance also shows that the average
linked through a unique health ID Covid policies declines claim size is close to Rs. 1.02 lakh.Non-
(Aadhar or something new). The justi- As the demand for Covid-19 specific Covid claims, however, show a mixed
fication: An integrated system with Insurance policies is increasing, the trend of showdown for some insurers
common standards would allow easy average claim size has been decreas- while they begin to gain traction for
access to medical history and make it ing, according to health insurers. others.

The Insurance Times, October 2020