How to Port Your Health Insurance Policy?

When it comes to readiness, health insurance will always be your best stake. Because a medical emergency can hit anyone at any time thus, having a comprehensive health insurance plan will be beneficial in covering all your treatment and care costs. While renewing your health insurance policy, you must check the coverage and benefits you are getting against the premiums. But if your plan is expensive and offers only limited coverage, you must port your health insurance policy to another insurer. With health insurance portability, the insured policyholder can easily port his/her policy to a different insurer without compromising the insurance benefits.

How to Port Health Insurance?

Start the process

If you are planning to port a health insurance policy, you should approach the new health insurance company at least 45-60 days before your existing health policy expiry. You should get in touch with the new insurer for the porting process at least 45 days before the renewal of your current health policy. This period can be called port time. Research properly before starting the porting process with the new insurer.

Do the paperwork properly

Once you have prepared your mind, you need to fill up a proposal form for portability with your new insurance provider. In the form, you need to mention all the details, including your previous policy information, healthcare history with pre-existing diseases, claim history, etc., and then you can apply for portability. Along with your portability form and proposal, you need to submit all imperative documents, like your identity and residence proofs, medical history, claim history, and recently diagnosed disease (in the case if any), previous policy certificates ( in the case of no claims) self-declaration, etc.

Your insurers will take it forward

After submitting your portability request on the IRDA portal, your present insurer will automatically get intimated. All relevant data will be displayed on the official portal of IRDA. Then, your present insurance company needs to submit the information related to your medical and claims history to the new insurance company.

Expect an update at the end of the 15 days period

After evaluating the condition, the new health insurance company either accepts or declines the portability request. The company will make the decision based on the information received and its underwriting rules. The new insurer will take the final call within 15 days. In the case of any failure from the insurer, the new insurer needs to accept the application mandatorily as per the health insurance portability rules.

Check what your payout will be

Once you decide on portability, medical underwriting occurs based on your present health status and not your past health conditions when you purchased the policy for the first time. Depending on the current health status of policyholders, sometimes they have to co-pay. Even after switching the policy, they need to pay a hefty premium amount for the same reason. Apart from it, you don’t need to pay any other portability charges. If you are above 45 years old or suffering from a medical condition, you might need a pre-policy medical check-up.

Documents you need to submit for porting your health insurance policy

The portability process of health insurance may differ slightly depending on the terms and conditions of the insurer. You should consider both your present and potential insurer to understand the exact set of documents that you need to submit for portability. You may need to submit the below-mentioned documents to start the process.

Required Documents for Porting Health Insurance

• Identity Proof
• Address Proof
• IRDAI portability form
• Proposal Form
• Insurance Policy
• Claim History (if any)
• Self-declaration (in the case of no claims history)
• Documents related to medical conditions

Health Insurance Portability Act and Rules

• Type of policy
• Insurance Company
• Gaps
• Informing the Insurance Company
• Response from the present insurer
• Porting Fees
• Changes in premium
• Grace period 
• Sum Insured and Coverage
• Waiting Period

The porting process of your health insurance should abide by certain rules and regulations. Though there is no health insurance portability Act, there are still some rules that the IRDA instructs. The policyholder and the insurer must follow these rules.

Type of policy

The policyholder is eligible for portability for his/her insurance policy to only a similar type of policy. The policyholder can’t suddenly change the coverage or type of the policy during this migration.

Insurance Company

Any Indian insurer can be classified either into a life insurance company or a general insurance company. While migrating from one insurer to another, the policyholder should select a similar type of insurance company.  

Gaps

While considering porting for your existing health insurance policy, there should not be any gap in renewals because you can’t port a lapsed policy.

Informing the Insurance Company

For the porting process, the policyholder needs to intimate his/her present insurance company at least 45 days before the renewal of the policy.

Response from the present insurer

Your present insurer needs to acknowledge your portability request within 3 days.

Porting Fees

As per IRDA rules and regulations, neither your existing nor your new insurer can charge a fee for porting a health insurance policy.

Changes in premium

Sometimes, you need to pay an additional premium while switching from your old insurer to the new one. This is because the new insurer may calculate a different amount for your premium for the same health policy.

Grace period 

When your porting application is under process, you as a policyholder are eligible to avail of an additional grace period of 30 days. During this grace period, you need to pay the premium.

Sum Insured and Coverage

The policyholder can enhance the sum insured amount and the new policy’s coverage as per his/her healthcare requirements.

Waiting Period

Suppose the policyholder is planning to uplift the coverage, and the insurer approves this. In that case, the policyholder needs to serve the waiting period according to the terms and conditions of the new health insurer.

These days, you can even switch your health insurance policy online in a hassle-free way. But don’t forget the above things and follow the porting process to enjoy the benefits of your health insurance policy in an utmost way.