Letter to IRDA Chairman for Group Health Insurance Cost Reduction

REGISTERED

No. FORSE/Ch/IRDA/0114

Oct 24, 2014

Sri T.S.Vijayan,

Chairman,

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority,

3^rd Floor, Parisrama Bhawan, Basheer Bagh,

Hyderabad-500004

Sub: Group Health Insurance

Dear Sir,

We are an organisation of retired employees of Steel Authority of India Ltd. I hope you know that those of us in SAIL (and other industrial PSUs) who retired before 2007 do not get any pension unlike LIC, Banks etc. For us the only benefit at present is post-retirement Health care through mediclaim insurance with limits on total claim per year. The limits as of now are low and the retirees are required to spend out of pocket- especially the very senior retirees who are in their 70s and 80s due to old age ailments. I hope you will appreciate that this is not commensurate with high rocketing uncontrolled price rise and cost of living. SAIL has so far not accepted our request for increase in limits on the ground that the payment of premiums will increase.

While this being so we have come across a news item “Group insurance costs set to rise” (ref: The Economic Times dt.18^th Oct 2014) quoting your address at a health insurance summit organized by the National Insurance Academy in Mumbai. It is also reported in The Economic Times that “Group health insurance will become more expensive for companies...” Sir, you must be aware how impossible it would be for the retired persons without pension to manage both ends meet. This would be more so for those retired quite early- before 2007. We are afraid that Insurance companies would take the clue and immediately increase the premiums and our past employer will not increase the limits as requested but rather may further restrict the admissibility of the claims. Sir, you are also aware that the Group Health Insurance is mostly for the aged group who are without any salary. You would agree that it is necessary to look into the issue with some empathy.

We request you to use your good offices to ensure that premiums for group health insurance of aged retirees is kept at the minimum so that the past employers would be able to take a positive attitude on the benefits to its retirees. We are sure under your guidance IRDA will be able to work out a comprehensive scheme.

We shall be grateful to you if you can kindly keep us informed of action taken so that we can approach SAIL again for enhancing the limits.

With thanks and kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

(V.N.Sharma)

Chairman