Covid cover tenure to be extended

The insurance regulator may provide options to policyholders of coronaspecific health covers to either renew their covers or port to other health plans to ensure that they remain covered.

T.L. Alamelu, membernon-life at the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai), while speaking at the Assocham esummit, said, “Actually we have been debating in the last 10 days on mainstreaming corona specific plans. I think when we launched them, we were optimistic in thinking that the pandemic would end soon but now that is not going to happen we are thinking of ways and means. And sooner rather than later, we would be issuing instructions on how the Corona Kavach or Corona Rakshak plans can be mainstreamed or the plans be renewed or they be allowed to port or migrate to other plans so that the policyholders to whom the insurance companies have sold these plans continue to get a good cover not only for covid but for the entire health spectrum.”

In July, the insurance regulator had mandated insurers to provide two specific health insurance policies for Covid-19 treatment, namely Corona Kavach health insurance policy and Corona Rakshak health insurance policy. These two plans cover hospitalisation expenses, domiciliary treatment, Ayush treatment, and the cost of consumable items like PPE kits, masks, gloves, oximeters, oxygen cylinders, etc.

However a key difference between a Corona Kavach and Corona Rakshak is that the former option only covers the hospital bill whereas the sum insured is paid to the insured in the latter.