Anil Rego on how and when to port health insurance policy

When should one port health insurance policy? How should an insurer or a policy holder decide that it is the right time to consider porting?
It is a good feature that one can port the policy and use an alternate insurer. One will continue to get the benefits of all the no claims and stuff like that that have accrued to you. So it is an important option to consider. One considers it when one is not getting the right service, the premiums are costlier or one can find another provider with a lower premium. There are also some additional features.

For example, somebody may want an Ayush treatment as part of their medical thing and that is something one can end up doing and those are the aspects one should look at while porting the policy.

Coming to the process, technically one needs to go back almost 45 days before to the insurer and if one goes there in time, then there is no way anybody can refuse, number one. There is an IRDA form which has to be filled for portability and then the insurance company will underwrite the policy, look at the health background etc and see whether one would like to continue with the policy or not and within 15 days they need to come back and tell either ways yes or no.

If there is a delay beyond that, one can assume that they have accepted it and then the insurer may want various documents for porting which also may have to be submitted at various points of time. The documents include ID, interest proof etc. and any information that they may want from the previous insurance company in terms of claims and once there is acceptance, then one has a 30-day grace period to pay the premium. So, IRDA has made it pretty simple and easy and very friendly for policyholders.

Are there any charges for porting the health insurance policy? You were mentioning that there is a form that needs to be downloaded.
Anil Rego: No, actually by IRDA guidelines, insurers cannot charge anything additional for porting the policy. There are very clear guidelines laid out and a company cannot just reject it. It is all beneficial to policyholders.