Irdai to launch portal for health insurance plans information

With a view to bring all relevant information regarding health insurance policies at one place, Irdai chairman T S Vijayan will launch here tomorrow a portal 'Registry of Hospitals in Network of Insurers' (Rohini).
The portal will be having all the information like treatment facility, cost of treatment and cost of claims among others relating to the 35,000 hospitals which are registered by Irdai-promoted Insurance Information Bureau (IIB). "It's a unique initiative of Irdai which going forward will help insurance companies and hospitals and all the insured under various health insurance schemes to get all relevant data at one place," Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) member Nilesh Sathe told PTI.

Every hospital across the country connected with insurance companies for cashless payment on registration has been given a unique identification number under the initiative by Irdai so as to make IIB able to monitor the patterns of health insurance claims from all those hospitals.
In fact, the registry of hospitals under Rohini is the final step in monitoring health insurance claims from various hospitals under the network to study the pattern of claims, cost of claims and cost of treatment.
"This is a good initiative for creating a unique identity for health providers in the country so as to understand each provider's unique need separately," ICICI Lombard chief-underwriting, claims and reinsurance Sanjay Datta said.

Sasikumar Adidamu, chief technical officer

(non-motor), Bajaj Allianz General Insurance said that "the Irdai norms would facilitate insurance companies to adopt a more structured approach while designing products, pricing and diligently manage the operations of the entire product lifecycle. This change will stand in good stead for companies, as they will be able to create more innovative and need based products."
"The new norms would check under pricing as the pricing would require actuarial and technical justification that has to be approved by a product management committee, a special committee to be formed by the concerned company", he added.
"The general insurers who are already doing business in the current market will be benefited to sell new products. This will contribute growth in gross written premium for the year 2016-17," Future Generali India Insurance MD and CEO Krishnamoorthy Rao said.

Rao advised that the new norms should be applicable for retails lines too on the plea that 'use and file' guidelines can help insurers offer varieties in retail products which can take care of consumer needs on day to day basis and it will result in boosting the growth under retail lines."
However, a section of the industry is not in its favour.
"Industry is yet to mature to be empowered. In order to protect retail customers' interest, regulatory oversight is desirable at this juncture", Tata AIG General Insurance president M Ravichandran said.