Standard vector borne disease health insurance policy on cards

IRDAI issues guidelines, advises general, health insurers to offer product

Insurance regulator IRDAI on Wednesday issued guidelines on Standard Vector Borne Disease Health Policy, an insurance cover for diseases such as dengue and malaria that it wants general and health insurers to add to their portfolio of products.

An insurance product whose features will be common, but priced differently with the insurers permitted to determine the premium, it follows a host of other standard products for which IRDAI had issued guidelines in recent months.

Stating that the Authority encourages all general and health insurers to offer the Standard Vector Borne Disease Health Policy, the guidelines the product will offer a lump sum benefit on hospitalisation. Lump sum benefit equal to 100% of the Sum Insured, excluding the amount paid under Diagnosis Cover component, will be payable on the insured testing positive for any of the listed vector borne diseases and requiring hospitalisation for a minimum continuous period of 72 hours.

The vector borne diseases covered will be dengue fever; malaria; filaria (lymphatic filariasis); kala-azar; chikungunya; Japanese encephalitis; and zika virus.

Under the Diagnosis Cover part of the insurance 2% of the sum insured will be payable on positive diagnosis (through laboratory examination and confirmed by the medical practitioner) of every covered vector borne disease on the first diagnosis during the policy period, subject to terms and conditions. The policyholder will be entitled for payments under “diagnosis cover” for each disease only once in the policy year.

The standard product will offer a policy tenure of one year (12 months). While the minimum sum insured will be ₹10,000, the maximum limit has been set at ₹2 lakh (in multiples of ₹10,000). It will be a single premium policy and have a 15 days waiting period. In other words, the insurance company will not be liable to make any payment under the policy if the vector borne disease is diagnosed or hospitalisation for that takes place during first 15 days from commencement date of this Policy.

Commenting on the development, Head – Retail Underwriting of Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Gurdeep Singh Batra said “this is a good product introduced well in time considering the upcoming onset of monsoon. That’s when people suffer the most from vector-borne diseases and with the fear of COVID-19 still around, I believe it will be a good offering for all.”