What Is Health Insurance Portability?

Gone are the days when you had to wait till your policy expiry date to switch to another insurer. With the introduction of ‘Portability’ in health insurance, you can switch your insurance provider at any point in time without losing out on any of the benefits; Just like we can switch our telecommunications provider.

Here are the 9 reasons why you should consider Porting your health insurance policy:

1. Get a Better Insurance Provider

Most of the time, the reason for porting is poor service of the insurance provider or dissatisfaction with their product. Portability serves you the opportunity of picking up a better insurer with better service and plan. 

Now that you know what you are dissatisfied with, pick up an insurance provider that is an industry recognised for its services. Make sure to check their product thoroughly. Often, the dissatisfaction from an insurer is due to their sluggish claim settlement procedure. Hence, check out the claim settlement process. 

2. Get a More Competitive Insurance Premium

Post Covid, many insurers increased their Health Insurance premium rates. So, even if you didn't make any claim in the past year, you would have seen your premium shot up during renewal. Thanks to the option of Portability, you are now not bound to pay that increased amount. 

With the number of insurance providers growing each day and the increased competition in the market, the insurers are on their toes to gain customer base. Hence, they keep offering discounts and several other benefits. 

When you port your insurance plan, there are high chances of receiving your desired benefits at a much lower premium than with your existing provider.  

3. Switch to an Insurer With a Wide Network of Hospitals

A wider network of empanelled hospitals means a better availability of cashless service when we enter a hospital for any health emergency. 

One might not always have finances available to handle a medical emergency and claim it later, as required in the reimbursement claims. However, the availability of a cashless claim ensures that the medical emergency doesn't hit our pockets even for the time being. We can thus, focus on taking care of health rather than worrying about arranging funds. 

4. Option to Switch to an Insurer With a Better Claim Settlement Ratio

Now that you are porting your policy to a better insurance provider, make sure to check their Claim Ratio.

A Claim Settlement Ratio reflects the percentage of claims settled by an insurance company against the total number of claims received by it in a given period.  A higher Claim Settlement Ratio ensures that a company is reliable in terms of settling claims. It is also a measure of the insurer’s trustworthiness and indicates their customer centric approach. 

By selecting an insurer with a high Claim Settlement Ratio, you can be assured of a swift claim settlement process in times of need.  

5. Carry Forward Your Accumulated Cumulative Bonus

A Cumulative Bonus is your reward for staying healthy, and you are not required to give up on that reward during porting. This feature being one of the major features of porting, your Cumulative Bonus gets added to your new health insurance policy.

6. Enjoy the Continuity Benefit on Your Waiting Period

Certain specific illnesses and pre-existing diseases require the individual to complete a stipulated waiting period before they can avail the benefits of health insurance coverage. One of the biggest advantages of porting is that you can avail a better policy without even affecting your waiting period. For example, the waiting period for Specific Illness in your current policy is 4 years, and you have completed 3 years. Now, when you port your policy, you need to complete just one more year with the new insurance provider.

7. Ability to Customise Your Policy

With Portability, you get the option to customise your new policy to suit your needs better. So now you can change the nominee, increase the sum insured and change your plan to focus on a specific disease if need be. Any of these customisations can be done while switching your policy from one insurer to the other. However, this feature largely depends on your insurance provider.   

8. Get Better Features Suited to Your Requirements

Similar plans with different insurers might differ in the features they offer. Some might provide a certain feature like No Room Rent Capping, Road Ambulance Cover and some other might provide other features like Air Ambulance Cover or Restoration Benefit. Portability gives you the opportunity to consider your options carefully and then finalise that suits your requirements the best. 

9. Your Chance to Avail a More Transparent Service Provider

One of the most frequent points of dissatisfaction among the insurance seekers is that they feel their insurer has hidden clauses and conditions, more so when you have had some claim instances with them.  Now that you are porting, you get a chance to research and choose a provider that has transparent practices and clauses. Choose a provider that is more digital in their approach. This ensures a better transparency and a smoother service experience. 

Thus, Portability is a great feature that helps you choose a health insurance plan that is best suited to your health requirements, while keeping your health coverage uninterrupted.

While you can start your research for deciding on another insurance provider at any time of the year, you can port your policy only when its due for renewal. You cannot port it if it has crossed the date of expiry. 

The ideal recommended time to start this process is at least 45 days in advance when your policy is due for renewal, so that it is ported to the new insurer, well in time.