Are Covid-recovered patients finding difficulty in buying health insurance policy?

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Ever since Covid struck, 11 million people have been infected in India and good to note that 10.7 million have recovered so far. The severity of the illness from the virus ranges from asymptomatic to mild flu like symptoms, complications requiring hospitalisation with prolonged stay and treatment. In some cases, the post-recovery complications have been severe, also leading to unfortunate loss of life.

Covid certainly raised awareness for the need to have comprehensive health insurance and life cover. General public has rushed to buy insurance to combat financial loss due to sudden illness, eventuality. This explains a 29% rise in retail health insurance premiums in FY 20-21 till January.

While the regulator and insurers announced Covid-specific insurance products, what are the options if you fell victim to Covid in the past and are now looking to buy normal health insurance?

According to media reports and discussions with insurance brokerage firms, we find that those individuals, who have recently recovered from Covid may not be eligible for a cover immediately. Many insurers have come out with the concept of waiting period for issuing health insurance policy. This waiting period starts after Covid recovery, when a person will be able to buy health insurance. This waiting period ranges from 15 days to 90 days with various insurers. TATA AIG has a cooling off period of 30 days. Other companies like Max Bupa, ICICI Lombard, HDFC Ergo and Care are issuing policy after 90 days of recovery.

Some insurers are issuing policies while categorising any post-Covid complication as ‘pre-existing condition’. All insurers have a standard pre-existing illness exclusion clause in their offering. Under this clause, specific ailments present at the time of application are not covered for certain number of years. After this mandatory period of exclusion, the illness is covered under the policy. So the Covid cases with prolonged hospital stay and severe complication may have to face longer waiting periods and Covid related exclusions.

Covid being a recent infection, the post-recovery long term implications are not fully clear to medical world. According to experts, there is possibility of adverse health repercussions over the long term to come and these can be respiratory ailments, lung damage and impairment seen in other organs or organ systems. This impact can really be serious in senior citizens or patients with other conditions like heart disease. Predictions are that incidence of these long-term effects of Covid may raise the losses for insurers. We know that due to lack of data, ascertaining the future risk is tough.

While talking to a corporate who has recently gone in for Group Term Insurance policy even for underwriting a life insurance cover, Insurers like Tata AIA are now asking for Covid specific questions, to ascertain the probability of infection or say risk. Insurers are seeking separate additional questionnaires to be filled up for finding the details from recently recovered Covid members .

The clarity on long term impact of Covid will emerge in the coming months and years. This is especially true for mental illness cases.

Learning for you is that do not wait for major illness or Covid and then think of buying health insurance. Buy it immediately, when you are healthy.

(The writer is director and founder of RIA Insurance Brokers. Views expressed are personal)