Actor and singer Suchitra Krishnamoorthi recently experienced the consequences of health insurance portability gone wrong when her claim was rejected over alleged non-disclosure of medical history. According to reports from Mint, she ported her policy to ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd after being repeatedly pressured by her bank relationship manager. The manager assured her she would receive continuity benefits without making fresh medical disclosures, but after nearly 30 years of insurance history with no prior claims disputes, her claim was rejected. Krishnamoorthi has since taken the matter to the insurance ombudsman.
New Delhi-based Lokesh Sharma encountered a similar situation when his father's health insurance policy was sold as a fresh policy despite being ported. As reported by Mint, his father had held health insurance through his bank since 2019 with a premium of ₹70,000, which rose to ₹1 lakh in 2022. The bank relationship manager connected them to an insurer representative who assured no fresh disclosures were needed and the premium would be lower. However, when the family filed a claim, it was rejected on waiting period grounds because the policy was issued as a fresh policy. The insurance ombudsman ruled in favor of the insurer, and the Sharma family now plans to move to consumer court.
According to Keshav Jain, director of Rajesh Chetan Insurance Brokers, health insurance portability is being misused in some cases despite regulations. As reported by Mint, since porting carries little or no commission, policies that should ideally be ported are often booked as fresh sales. Customers rarely examine policy certificates to verify whether portability benefits have actually been carried forward. The framework was introduced in 2011 to allow policyholders to switch insurers without losing continuity benefits on waiting periods already served and accumulated no-claim bonus. However, Mint Money's reporting reveals that intermediaries are paid incentives to port policies, even though such payments are prohibited, making the decision to port driven by intermediary payouts rather than customer needs.
Shilpa Arora, co-founder and chief operating officer of Insurance Samadhan, revealed that more than half of rejected claims in ported policies arise due to non-disclosure of diseases and disputes over pre-existing disease waiting periods. According to Mint reports, experts emphasize that portability remains valuable only if policyholders follow the process carefully and verify that policies are actually issued as ported policies. Policyholders should not assume that information from previous insurers is automatically transferred via the IIB portal, and should avoid switching insurers just because other policies are cheaper, especially if claims have been made or medical conditions exist. The current system lacks transparency, with no publicly available data on the number of policies ported in and out during a year, and no data around claims rejected from the ported bucket.
