Irda to come out with health insurance guidelines soon

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) will shortly come out with guidelines pertaining to administration of health insurance. “The guidelines will basically address claim forms, billing and registration-related issues,” Irda Chairman J Hari Narayan said.

Stating that it would be better if claim forms were similar across the country, Narayan said the regulatory authority had worked with different organisations, including the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, to formulate the proposed guidelines.

Addressing a press conference after inaugurating NSE.IT’s testing and assessment centre here today, Narayan said the issue of cashless medical insurance, which was fundamentally commercial in nature, was between hospitals and insurance companies. “The so called five-star hospitals are now looking into it and I am confident that the issue will be resolved,” he added. Asserting that the deadline for implementing the new guidelines for unit-linked insurance products (Ulips) would not be extended, the Irda chairman said the new norms were aimed at improving the long-term prospects of the insurance industry. “My concern for the insurance industry is not what happens in the six months or a year. What is significant is what is going to happen in the medium to long term,” he said.

Pointing out that Irda wanted insurance companies to reduce their costs, he said he was hopeful that the new Ulip guidelines would have the desired impact in this regard.

Irda had issued new Ulip guidelines on June 28, to be effective from September 1 Narayan said Ulip norms had been substantially tightened and the regulator did not envisage any further tightening.

“There is no such thing as a super regulator. There is just a forum for resolving misunderstandings and overlap of issues between the regulators,” Narayan said when asked about the Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha last month that sought setting up of a joint committee comprising the finance minister as chairperson to resolve differences among the various regulators in the financial sector.

Asked about the inclusion of the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority in the joint committee, he said the Bill was still under consideration and one had to see what the final enactment would be.

Earlier, inaugurating the testing and assessment centre, Narayan said Irda was planning to make syllabus for the agent recruitment test comprehensive by including material on policyholder need analysis and complex products like Ulips. The new syllabus is expected to be in place in a span of two-three months. NSE. IT Managing Director and Chief Executive Ramesh Padmanabhan said the company had set a target of establishing 250 test and assessment centres by March 2011. It has so far set up 106 centres.

NSE.IT, an information technology services and solutions organisation, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange.