It is over four months now since the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority introduced the health insurance portability, in October 2011. However, the implementation has been stalled due to a number of hurdles and this has prevented the success of health insurance portability. Policyholders and insurers are facing a lot of issues on these portability issues.
Under health insurance portability, a customer can make a switch from one insurance provider to another, and the customer will still be able to gain credits on continuity of insurance coverage as it would be passed from one policy to another. Earlier on, customers used to stick to their original insurers fearing that they will lose the benefits on pre-existing health conditions and they were also worried about the waiting period clause that ranged anywhere from 30 days to 3 years.
Despite the fact that everyone was eagerly awaiting health insurance portability, the action is yet to be seen from customers. As of now, the queries have been coming mostly from distribution networks on behalf of customers. The lack of standardized products in health insurance could be causing a hindrance to customers and they may be unable to switch their insurance providers.
Although insurance portability has come into being, it will take a long time before people become aware of these options and for insurance providers to be able to share information.
After you make up your mind to port the insurance policy, you should start looking at different insurance products that are available. You can do that by visiting different websites and studying various policies, and then you will get a better understanding of your requirement. Following that you may compare products, waiting period, co-payments, capping, as well as exclusions in the policy.
Once you finish selecting the product according to your needs, you may then approach the insurance provider before the policy reaches expiry date (approach 45 days in advance). Then fill in the application and ensure that all the information you provide is correct before you submit the application to the insurance company. After the new insurer receives relevant information from your previous insurer, the proposal will go through processing and the customer will be intimated within a couple of weeks. If the customer is agreeable to the terms and conditions, then the premium needs to be paid without any delay. Once the premium is received by the new insurer, the policy will continue without lapsing.
