You may now be able to buy a health insurance cover after a maximum of seven days after being diagnosed with Covid, irrespective of whether you are vaccinated or not. Some insurers, including Niva Bupa Health Insurance, Care Health Insurance and Digit General Insurance, have reduced the cooling off period to zero to seven days from the day you get diagnosed with Covid.
All Niva Bupa plans that cover Covid have a zero-day cooling-off period, while all Care Health insurance plans and health plans from Digit General Insurance offer a seven-day cooling off period.
What Is Cooling Off Period?
The cooling off period is the time during which a person affected by a certain disease may not be able to buy health cover. This may vary from a few days to a few months.
The cooling off period is considered as an essential tool for health insurers to ensure the customer’s health is evaluated fairly and accurately. For instance, in case of Covid, a person may be asymptomatic and won’t know that he is suffering from the infection. However, the person may get diagnosed or the symptoms might start to show in a few days.
The cooling off period applied to health insurance policies even before the pandemic. Cooling off period is different for different diseases. It varies from condition to condition and insurer to insurer. It is, typically, two-four years for pre-existing conditions like diabetes or hypertension.
What Happened After The Covid Outbreak?
The initial waves of infection plunged the world into a prolonged state of panic, resulting in a slew of restrictions imposed around the world. The insurance industry was directly affected by the outbreak.
Initially, the cooling off period was longer for new health insurance plans but as the severity of Covid variants has reduced, this has come down. “Previously, the waiting period for some policies could have been as long as six months. This is especially true for the second wave, when both the number of claims and the severity of infection increased dramatically. This period was gradually reduced to 30 days. Insurers are now offering a waiting period of as low as seven to 15 days for Covid detection. Not only that, but some insurance companies even offer a zero-day cooling-off period,” says Amit Chhabra, head, health insurance, Policybazaar.com.
What Should You Do?
Ideally, you should buy health insurance before you get infected with Covid to be able to avail the policy benefits without any delay. You should make sure that you go through the policy terms and conditions and check if the policy covers Covid-related infections.
While the third wave may be slowing down for the time being, it is unclear when the next variant will hit and how severe it would be. “The bottom line is that we have no idea how long we will be fighting this pandemic or how severe the infection will become in the future. As a result, protecting yourself and your loved ones is a must,” adds Chhabra.
Remember to disclose all the information at the time of policy issuance to avoid any discrepancies that can later lead to rejections.
Existing policyholders should remember to renew their health insurance policy before it expires and check if the sum insured is adequate.
