Page 8 - Insurance Times March 2022

IRDAI

News

IRDAI proposes to make formation on the policyholder's respon- the insurers should arrange for ad-
sibilities while porting their policies, equate number of public and private
policyholders less account- apart from the sequence of steps to be sector network providers across all ge-
able while porting health followed. The proposed changes may ographies to provide cashless facility.
make policyholders less accountable Goyal said, "The main focus of health
policy
while porting. The insurers have a re- insurance is to provide cashless facili-
Soon, insurers may be solely responsible sponsibility as they have to increase due ties to policyholders in dire situations.
for collecting the policyholder's claims diligence," Kamdar said. However, due to non-availability of net-
information from the existing insurer work hospitals, policyholders suffer
The guidelines have also prescribed a
after porting of a health policy. As a re- losses. Hence, this mandate further sig-
sult, insurers will not be able to deny period of five days from the receipt of nifies the importance of health insur-
the portability form for the port-in in-
claims on the grounds of non-disclosure. ance and Ensure high reliability of cus-
Also, insurers will have to search the surer to obtain all necessary informa- tomers' insurance policies."
tion from the existing insurer.
policyholder's essential medical and IRDA has proposed these amendments
claims history from the existing insurer Naval Goel, Founder and CEO,
in the regulation in consultation with
within five working days of receipt of PolicyX.com said that by making port-
the Insurance Advisory Committee. The
the portability form. ability a time-bound process, IRDAI
draft is under review and IRDA has
The changes proposed by IRDAI are aims to ensure that policyholders' re- asked stakeholders to share their feed-
aimed at making policyholders less ac- quests are not pending for an undefined back.
countable while porting their health period.
insurance policies. "Since portability is quite a common IRDAI wants insurers at par
Nikhil Kamdar, appointed actuary of trend in health insurance and it was with banks on legal re-
Digit Insurance, said as per the pro- mainly done manually, which you would
posed guidelines, insurers would be re- consume for at least 15 days or more, course for surety bonds
sponsible for obtaining the this order was quite necessary. During IRDAI has taken up the issue of insurers
policyholder's past claims history from this course, policyholders We were being treated at par with banks when
the existing insurer. Previously, it was never sure whether they would get a it comes to recovery recourse available
the responsibility of the insured to dis- new policy or not and if they did not get to them for the surety bond business
close these details to the new insurer, health insurance from the new insurer, and the government has reacted posi-
and future claims could be rejected if it would put them in a difficult position. tively to the concerns of the industry,
such details were not explicitly shared However, this will not happen with said TL Almelu, member, Non-Life, Irdai.
at the time of porting. these new draft amendments," Goyal Speaking at a seminar, Alamelu said,
said. said.
"Furthermore, insurers have been ad- "Recently we had come with surety
vised to publish on their website all in- In addition, IRDA has also proposed that bond guidelines for which there is huge

8 The Insurance Times, March 2022