The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has issued comprehensive guidelines on Migration and Portability for health insurance, allowing policyholders to transfer benefits between insurers or within the same insurer. According to reports from Mint, these guidelines are applicable to all retail (individual) and group indemnity health insurance products, including both individual sum insured and family floater sum insured policies.
As defined by IRDAI, portability is the right for individual health insurance policyholders to transfer the credit gained for pre-existing conditions and time bound exclusions, from one insurer to another. According to Mint reports, policyholders can port their health insurance policy as many times as they like, provided the new insurance company accepts their portability requests. The process requires requesting portability at least 45 days before the existing policy's renewal, and policyholders do not have to pay additional amounts - only the premium of the new health policy.
IRDAI defines migration as the right of health insurance policy holders to transfer the credit gained for pre-existing conditions and time bound exclusions, with the same insurer. As reported by Mint, policyholders must apply at least 30 days before the premium renewal date of the existing policy. They can shift to similar individual health insurance policies or group health insurance policies, provided the members meet the terms related to health insurance coverage of the group policy.
According to IRDAI guidelines reported by Mint, a health insurance company must acknowledge a portability request within three days of receiving it, and they need to either accept or reject the request within 15 days of receiving all requested documents. For migration, individual policyholders must have continuously renewed the previous policy without break for minimum of four years, without any underwriting to the extent of sum insured and benefits available in the previous policy.
As explained in the IRDAI guidelines reported by Mint, porting allows moving to a different insurer, also transferring benefits, though it's like a new purchase with potential rejections or higher premiums. In contrast, migration means shifting to a new plan with the same insurer, carrying over accrued benefits like waiting periods. The accrued benefits, such as waiting periods for pre-existing diseases, are carried over to both new plans, though porting functions like buying a new policy with underwriting rules applying and potential application rejections.
