Amid a surge in coronavirus cases in several countries, regulator Irdai has asked insurers to consider giving discount on renewal of general and health insurance policies to policyholders who have taken three shots of the Covid-19 vaccine.
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has also asked both life and non-life insurance companies to settle Covid-related claims at the earliest and reduce paper work, sources said.
During a meeting to create awareness about Covid-19 last week, sources said, the regulator also stressed that insurers should offer incentives to policyholders on getting RT-PCR tests done through their wellness network.
It asked insurers to encourage Covid-appropriate behaviour through the social media outreach.
With regard to overseas travel insurance, Irdai asked underwriters of such policies to spread information about Covid testing requirements of various countries.
The regulator also urged insurers to ensure that empanelled hospitals are prohibited from taking deposit for Covid-19 hospitalisation, sources said, adding, some of the hospitals indulged in asking for deposit for Covid treatment during the first and second wave despite having cashless policy.
The insurers should create a war room for Covid-related assistance to all stakeholders for the worst case scenario. Data should be reported in a set format so that there is no discrepancy.
On the other hand, the insurers asked the regulator to look at standardisation of treatment protocol so that fraud cases are minimised.
Over 2.25 lakh death claims due to Covid were settled by insurance companies up to March 2022, Irdai said in its annual report released last week.
Pension plan
India’s pension fund regulator has recommended the federal government introduce a UKlike pension scheme for the country’s gig workers, a move aimed at bringing about 90 per cent of the overall workforce into the pension fold, its chairman told Reuters.
The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), which manages over $102 billion in assets, has proposed that workers at food and cab aggregators be automatically enrolled into the National Pension Scheme (NPS), chairman Supratim Bandyopadhyay said in an interview on Tuesday.
The PFRDA regulates NPS, India’s voluntary retirement savings scheme that was started in 2004 and now has 16.7 million subscribers, including from the government and private sectors as well as from parts of the unorganised sector.
The PFRDA has recommended that employers deduct a part of their payouts to gig workers’ and contribute that to the NPS scheme, said Bandyopadhyay.
