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Given the world health scenario due to the outbreak of Covid-19, people have become increasingly aware about the importance of having good physical and financial health. This increase in health insurance awareness has also led to an increase in demand for health insurance policies. During the times of pandemic and economic stress a health insurance cover not only help people in managing their medical expenses but also in protecting their savings. Good news is recently many changes have been brought to expand the scope of your health insurance policy making it more customer friendly. Here are a few major ways how your health insurance policy has changed after pandemic hit the world:

Standardisation

With so many Health Insurance choices available in the market, consumers mostly get confused about which policy to buy. Good news is from October 1, 2020, the regulator has standardised terms and conditions, waiting periods and exclusions across the health insurance policies. The diseases from which insurers shied away for long such as mental illness, HIV and Alzheimer will also get covered in the policy now. Given the modern methods, tele medicine will also be covered in your policy. Most importantly, now claim cannot be rejected after the completion of eight years and your insurer will be bound to pay the amount, except in case of any fraudulent claim.

Though the coverage of health policies have become widened, the insurers have increased the premium of health insurance policies by 40-110%. This has left many, especially senior citizens, squeezing their budget.

Corona Policies

You can now buy standard short-term Coronavirus specific policies so that health insurance becomes simple and affordable in these testing times.  Corona Kavach policy specifically covers one against hospitalisation expenses for the treatment of COVID-19. This policy also covers you against the costs of treatment of COVID-19 for home treatment maximum up to 14 days per incident. Most importantly, given that there are lot of consumables such as PPE that are not paid in a standard policy, the Covid Kavach policy covers the cost of PPE as well as expenses incurred on treatment of any comorbidity.

Wellness linked policies

With a rise in sedentary lifestyle and mounting stress levels, there has been a rise in chronic illnesses in the country. This has made wellness and preventive healthcare important like never before,  especially during the ongoing pandemic. Though many insurers already offering wellness benefits the regulator has now asked to mainstream the concept of wellness with focus curative aspects. Under the wellness concept, you will be covered for health check-ups, diagnostic tests cost of pharmaceutical, and most importantly outpatient consultations, among other things.

E-policies

With the outbreak of the pandemic people, contactless services are preferred like never before. With the recent changes you can now give your insurer consent through one-time password received on the mobile number validated by the insurance company. There is no more need for a wet signature on the hard copy of the proposal form. Similarly, you can ask your agent for online KYC through Video Based Identification Process (VBIP).

The above mentioned steps have been made in the right direction by the regulator and industry. However, a lot still remains to be done to uncomplicate health insurance making it more customer friendly.