Chennai: The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) might make available health policies to people with long-standing and non-curable diseases, according to recent reports.
A committee was set up by the regulatory body recently, to standardise exclusions in health insurance policies.
It has now been stated that the committee is likely to submit its report in the next two months and in it recommending that health policies should also be available to people with long-standing, non-curable but manageable diseases.
Reports state that persons with diseases, including diabetes, haemophilia, a few auto-immune diseases and cardiac problems, may now find it easier to get health cover.
The committee will take another two to three months to finalise its recommendations. “The general idea is that even if a person is suffering from such diseases but is receiving treatment and has declared it, he or she should be able to get health cover if not fully for that particular disease, but then for any other health problem that may arise later,” reports have cited the source to have said.
Another issue that is under discussion is about how and in what form cancer survivors could or should get health insurance.
“At present, it is very difficult for persons who have successfully recovered from cancer to get health cover even if they declare it,” the report stated.
The committee is also said to be looking into the matter apart from working on providing clarity on the definition of mental illnesses, which now have to be mandatorily covered under health insurance.
With the changes however, the premium and pricing of medical insurance policies are also likely to be impacted.
The IRDAI had, in July this year, set up a working group to rationalise the exclusions in health insurance policies to enhance the scope of health insurance coverage.
Significantly, the committee led by Suresh Mathur, Executive Director (Health), IRDAI, has also been asked to rationalise the exclusions that disallow coverage with respect to new modalities of treatments and technologically-advanced medical treatments.