Private sector non-life insurer ICICI Lombard has added some Covid-19-specific features to its existing health products. This comes at a time when the insurance regulator has proposed a benefit-based Covid-specific product that all insurers must offer by the end of June.

For new customers, the insurer has reduced the waiting period from 30 days to 15 days for Covid-related claims with no increase in premium and it is applicable to all the health products that the company offers. Claims related to other illness will still have a 30 day waiting period.

The insurer has also added a feature called the home health care benefit wherein policyholders who wish to get themselves treated at home and not visit a hospital due to concerns pertaining the virus, will be covered under the health policies of the company. Importantly, Covid-19 home care treatment will be covered by the policies that company has to offer but subject to guidelines specified by the health ministry and the state authorities.

Further, the insurer has said, it will continue to offer no claim bonus despite claims made due to Covid-19. The additional sum assured accrued in the policy will not be impacted if the policyholders gets hospitalised due to the virus.

Sanjeev Mantri, Executive Director, ICICI Lombard said,” The enquiries for health insurance has gone up significantly. People are trying to get themselves aware on health fronts due to Covid”.

Interestingly, while many insurers have come up with their Covid specific products, the insurance regulator has asked insurers to offer a standard benefit based product which will give the policyholders a lump sum amount if they test positive and require hospitalization. But the insurers are free to price it according to their underwriting norms.

“Now, after three months, enough data is available on the mortality rate, the recovery rate. Typically, we have seen for 80-85 per cent of the cases, patients do not require hospitalization. So, there is enough data available to price the standard Covid product”, Mantri said.

On the issue of insurers not including the PPE costs in claims, Mantri said,” We have put up a standard protocol by which the cost of PPE kits will be taken care of. But there will be a standardized tariff on which we will be operating it”.