New Delhi, Jun 21: The Coronavirus pandemic has led to a steep hike in health insurance premium by 250-300 per cent, which poses a big challenge to the middle class families.
Some regular customers of health insurance from United India Insurance Company Ltd said that this year the premium has been increased a lot compared to last year.
This has increased the burden on them. Another policy holder says that the company has abolished health insurance of Rs 50,000, Rs one lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh and now it will be mandatory for every customer to have insurance of at least Rs two lakh which will be valid for one year.
He said that the company has complicated the insurance policies by making many changes under its new scheme. Earlier the amount of premium for health insurance was the same for all, but from this year onwards, the premium amount has increased age-wise.
Apart from this, there was a provision for inclusion of parents, two children besides the husband, and wife, but now the parents have also been excluded.
Now, for old parents, separate health insurance has to be bought which is very expensive.
Pankaj Lamba, an official of United India Insurance Company Ltd told Univarta on Sunday that till last year, customers were given health insurance under ‘Sindh Arogya Scheme’ under Syndicate Bank, but after this bank’s merger with Canara Bank, the scheme itself expired, but is included in an already ongoing plan to continue insurance facility to customers.
“There has not been any increase in the amount of premium, but in the scheme under which individual health insurance is being given to the people, the amount of premium has already been determined. Due to the change in policy, the premium amount has increased for the customers,” Mr Lamba said.
For the year 2019-20, in June last year, the amount of premium on health insurance of Rs two lakh was Rs 5312, including GST. Such provisions were made in the renewal of insurance for the year 2020-21, which has increased the amount of premium up to 300 per cent.
Under the new provision, an insurance holder of Rs two lakh, whose age is 0-35 years, will have to pay a premium amount of Rs 5740 and 18 per cent GST.
Similarly,those aged 36-40 yrs have to pay a premium of Rs 5910, 41-45 yrs- Rs 6600,46-50 yrs- Rs 9507, 51-55 yrs- Rs 11820,56-60 yrs-Rs 13730, plus 18 per cent GST on all the premiums.
Till last year, customers in the 80-year-old age group had to pay a premium of only Rs 5312 for Rs two lakh, but now sixty-year olds will have to pay a one-year premium of Rs 16201 including GST, which is more than 300 per cent.
He said that as an old insurance holder, he had to deposit an increased amount of premium under compulsion.
“During the Corona pandemic, the company has intentionally increased the premium amount according to age, to recover huge sums of money from customers, which is completely unethical,” he said.
The company should review the amounts so that customers can get relief, he added.
(UNI)
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