In India, health insurance portability enables policyholders to switch insurers without losing accrued benefits like NCB. Health insurance portability is the process of moving from your existing insurance policy from one provider to another without losing accrued benefits such as free medical check-up, no claim bonus (NCB) or waiting period credit.
It allows you to shift from existing company to another with better benefits without losing most accumulated renewal benefits. Notably, policyholders are not required to pay any additional charges exceeding the premium of the new health insurance policy to port your plan.
Health Insurance Portability: Who is eligible?
Portability is the right of health insurance policyholders to transfer the credit gained for pre-existing conditions and time bound exclusions, from one insurer to another.
- However, porting is possible only at the time of existing policy renewal and cannot be undertaken when the existing health insurance policy is due for renewal or at any time throughout the policy year.
- A key point is that the insured can only port the existing policy to a similar health indemnity policy of the other insurer i.e. a family floater policy can be ported to another floater plan only.
- According to Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India’s (IRDAI) rules, any individual, family and group policyholder is eligible for portability as long as they initiate the portability request to the new insurer at least 45 days before the renewal of the existing policy is due. The new company then has 15 days to either accept or reject your request, failing which your application is automatically accepted.
- Further, your existing policy must have been renewed without break and not have lapsed during tenure, and you are required to have completed at least one year with your existing insurer before applying for portability.
- You are allowed to port your policy even after you have made a health insurance claim during the policy year. However, the new company can assess your claim history while processing your application and request additional information, charge a higher premium or even decline your proposal based on this history.
Today, we explore if you can undertake the switch even if you are currently part of a group health insurance policy and want to instead shift to an individual health insurance plan.
Can group health insurance policyholders port to an individual policy?
IRDAI’s migration and portability guidelines are applicable to all retail (individual) and group indemnity health insurance products; and both individual sum insured and family floater sum insured policies. Thus, you are allowed to port your existing group health insurance policy to an individual health policy from another insurance company.
However, before you initiate your portability request, you must first convert your existing group health policy into an individual health policy offered by your current insurer. Then, once you have completed the mandatory one-year tenure as an individual policyholder, the plan can be ported with an individual health policy offered by another company.
How to convert group insurance policy to individual health policy?
- You must inform your insurance company that you want to switch to an individual (or family) plan at least 30-45 days before your current group policy expires.
- Compare various individual (or family) plans on offer that work best for your requirement to settle on a suitable option and request your insurer for an application form.
- Fill out this application form along with required supporting documents and claim history (some insurers might also ask for a health check-up, as per Policybazaar).
- The filled form must be submitted to the insurer at least 35-40 days before your group policy expires.
- Once the individual plan is approved and put in place, you will have to ensure regular premium payments (either offline or online).
What documents are needed to make portability request?
- Previous years’ policy certificates,
- Latest renewal notices with a clear mention of continuity in coverage,
- Self-declaration by the policyholder in case of no claim, and
- Documents like discharge summary, investigation report, etc. if any claims have been filed.