IRDA wants lifelong renewal for health covers

Mumbai: The insurance regulator has told insurance companies that when they design new health plans there should not be a maximum age for existing policyholders. Companies will continue to have the freedom to set an age limit for entry — that is for buying the policy for the first time. But once they have issued apolicy, they will be obliged to continue renewing it during the life time of the policyholder.      Most health plans in the past have had a maximum age limit. The plans that were introduced earlier with a maximum age limit will continue to be sold as the pricing was based on the earlier design.      "Our health policies were life long renewable even without the regulator insisting on this feature," said Antony Jacob, CEO, Apollo Munich Health Insurance. Insurance officials said that lifelong renewal would require a re-look at pricing because their claims experience at the higher age bracket of 85 and above was more than 100%.      Secondly, health insurance penetration has picked up only in recent years and insurance companies do not have enough experience of morbidity at higher age groups. According to Jacob, unlike life insurance it is not possible to have flat premium rate over the years because the cost of treatment keeps rising because of medical inflation. TNN