Arogya Sanjeevani Policy – A uniform health insurance plan (REVIEW)
POSTED BY ON January 13, 2020 COMMENTS (34)
IRDA has recently announced the launch of health insurance policy called “Arogya Sanjeevani Policy” (official link) which will have standard features which are required by a common man for his health insurance requirement.
IRDA thought of a standard policy which will be exactly same across insurers with similar features. In this review, I plan to give you details of this policy.
What is Arogya Sanjeevani Policy?
It’s a standard health insurance policy for a common man with standard features. It will be offered by all health insurance companies in India starting from 1st April, 2020 onwards. The name of the policy will be ‘Arogya Sanjeevani Policy – Insurance company name’. The premium, however, may be set by the insurers on their own.
The existing health insurance policies in market are quite complex at times with fancy features and differ from each other so much that a normal investor finds it very tough to choose a suitable policy. Hence IRDA came with this policy.
Who can buy the policy and for whom?
Any person whose age is between 18 and 65 yrs can take this policy. Either the person can buy an individual policy or buy the family floater option if one wants to cover other family members.
“Family” here means
- Spouse
- Parents
- Parents-In-Law
- Dependent children between 3 months to 25 years (natural or adopted)
Note that any children who are above 18 yrs and financially independent will not be eligible for family floater.
Features Arogya Sanjeevani Policy
Feature |
Explanation |
| Sum Assured | The minimum sum assured is Rs 1 Lac and maximum sum assured is Rs 5 Lacs (in the multiple of 50,000) |
| Premium Payment Frequency | Premiums can be paid on a monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and on a yearly basis. It will be a 1 yr policy renewable each year |
| Cashless Benefit | Yes, there is cashless benefit under this policy |
| Maternity Benefit | Not Available |
| Renewability | Lifetime renewability is available in this policy. |
| Minimum & Maximum Age | The minimum entry age for the principal insured is 18 years and the maximum entry age is 65 years. |
| Waiting Period | 30 days of waiting period. Hence no claim will be paid in first 30 days after buying policy |
| Co-payment | A fixed copay for 5% is applicable for all ages in this policy. |
| Portability | Yes, the policy offers the portability option to other health insurance companies |
| Ambulance Charges | Max Rs. 2000 per hospitalization |
| Pre & post Hospitalization | 30 days Pre Hospitalization & 60 days Post Hospitalization expenses |
| Ayush Treatment | Yes, it’s Available.
AYUSH means all treatments related to Ayurvedic, Yoga, and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Homeopathy |
| Waiting Periods | There are 2 types of waiting periods, 24 months and 48 months.
Most of the illness have only 24 months of waiting period, but two of them have 48 months of waiting period. |
| Sub Limits |
|
| NCB (No Claim Bonus) | NCB (No Claim Bonus) of 5% for each year up to 50% of the sum assured is covered. |
| Riders | Not Available |
Policy Cancellation and Refunds
You can cancel the policy subject to following refund options
- If you cancel within 30 days, you will get 75% premiums back
- If you cancel from 31 to 90 days, then you get 50% premiums back
- If you cancel between 3 months to 6 months, then you get 25% premiums back
- After 6 months, you get NO refund
Is there any grace period in the policy?
Yes, For a yearly premium payment, 30 days grace period is allowed and for other modes of premium payment 15 days grace period is allowed.
Will the premium depend on my city or the zone?
No, it will be same across India. Note that some policies have zone-based premiums model
What are some exclusion of the policy.
The main exclusion is the maternity treatment expenses, but even treatments related to weight loss, change of gender, plastic surgery, hazardous adventure sports, breach of law or due to war, etc are excluded from the policy.
Good points of Arogya Sanjeevani Policy
- All main features are available in the policy which is required by any investor
- The policy has standard features, so no chance of getting confused when comparing the premiums of different companies
- It’s my guess, but the premiums of this policy would not be very high as copay is there in this policy and no complicated features exist. Also there is a very large market for this policy hence all insurance companies will compete with each other to keep premiums down
- Its a no brainer policy for someone who wants to buy a “decent policy”
- You can buy multiple Arogya Sanjeevani Policy from different insurers
Should you buy Arogya Sanjeevani Policy?
At the end, let me answer this important question.
Health Insurance is a long term product, and if you can afford the permission, you should go for a base policy which is very strong overall. I suggest one to go for a 10-15 lacs of base cover and extend the cover using super top up policies beyond that.
Overall Arogya sanjeevani policy is decent for a common man who wants a good enough health insurance policy which works. It’s like the Jan Dhan account which has all the decent features. However there are few things which are the issues
- 5% copay
- Sub limits of room rent
- Maximum Sum assured limit of Rs 5 lacs
- 30 days of waiting period
Hence, I would suggest to explore other health insurance policies which give option to take a higher sum assured and may also not have copay limits.
We also need to wait for couple of more months to see how this policy launch turns out to be and what kind of premiums will be charged by various companies. Overall, it’s a very positive development in health insurance space and this policy will give an opportunity to people from lower sections of society to buy a good enough health insurance policy.
Where is the Head Quarter (Main Office ) of the from where this New Arogya Policy is handled
There is no head quarter for this.
Very well explained the meaning of EMI Moratorium. Seems like banks have the all the rights I hope they use it wisely in this corona pandemic.
Thanks for your comment
Additionally, here are a couple things to know –
> The policy is primarily targeted to the Lower-Middle income bracket to ease their pockets, and provide additional coverage
> Dependent children (upto age 25) can avail benefits – However, if the child is 18+, and economically independent, they are excluded from the package
> Cataract treatments will be covered up to 25 % of the sum insured, or Rs 40,000, whichever is lower, per eye
> There are waiting periods for conditions like Glaucoma, Tumors, Cysts, etc., some of which can exceed upto 48 months
> ICU and ICCU charges are all inclusive as provided by the hospital up to 5 percent of the sum insured subject to maximum of Rs 10,000 per day
~Sanjeev Nanda
Thanks for adding these points Sanjeev!
Hello Sir,
My query is for waiting period
Waiting Periods There are 2 types of waiting periods, 24 months and 48 months.
Most of the illness have only 24 months of waiting period, but two of them have 48 months of waiting period.
48 Months waiting period is for Blood Pressure and Diabetic ?
Please confirm
Thanks
Dinkar
There is a list given in the link for circular which is there at the start of the article, kindly confirm from that
Manish
Seems link does NOT work. Seeing Unable to process your request. Please retry. . Verified on Chrome, Opera and IE 11
Thanks
Dinkar
Yea even I just checked and its not working .. Very common with govt web links
Nice article, and hope it can help most of them who is deciding to buy a health insurance policy in next financial year.
Even though, I am having a query. I am planning to buy a health insurance policy for me and my family. I am having Ankylosing spondylitis with HLA-B27 test positive, hence not getting a suitable health insurance cover for me.
Can you advise if this policy covers that or any other policy which covers that part.
Thanks!
Hi Prabhudeva
Its tough for me to comment if a policy will be able to cover something or not . Its totally on company decision and their underwriter.
But if you are getting rejections already, you can be very certain that it will be rejected in any other policy as well.
I suggest wait for few months and let this policy launch and then you can try your luck once 🙂
Manish
How much amount I have to pay as premium per year for 5 lacs ..
That we will come to know once the policy lauches
I have a family floater policy of 5 lakh for me( age 54) my wife( age 51) and kids (D 25 and S 22) with a top up of 10 lakh over and above if this 5 lakh are utilised both from star health for last 10 yrs.
What would be your recommendations for me for this universal policy?
No, I don’t think you should go for this in that case .. not for you
Hi,
Will my mother who is 73 be covered family floater or will her age be an issue.
Thanks,
Geo
The max age to ENTER the policy is 65 .. So you cant take it for your mother
I am planning to take a health policy. Will it make sense to wait for 2 months or take one right away?
If you want this policy, you have to wait anyways. But remember, as I said, you should better take a full fledged regular health policy offered by companies. So don’t wait from that point of view!
How much premium is payable annually for Rs.10 Lakh? Is it possible to become an agent?
As I said, the policy is not yet launched.
Sir i want to take a family floater policy me, husband n kid . Is it be suitable health insurance policy. I have taken Religare care family floater of 5 lacs. Is this policy has zonal benefits . What is the annual premium for 5 lakhs?
I think you should stick with Religare Care in that case
I am looking forward for a medical insurance policy for myself, my wife, and my daughter of around 5 lacs.
My daughter was born with congenital anomalies, it is called as Unicoronal Craniosynostosis. This has been already treated and cured and its been over 2 years now.
Sir, can i get this new medical policy for all the three family members as others did not gave us this policy?
Hi Pankaj
I don’t think still you will be able to get the policy even if the treatment is complete. Health insurance companies look at history of patient and based on that they take the decision.
Manish
Good article. Could be better. Minor, but at the same time significant errors which take away too much from the core message and in the end perpetuate common misconceptions about Insurance.
1. Spelling and grammar. Proofread, please!
2. Investor? Are you copy-pasting when authoring these articles? Please take the pain to differentiate between an Investment and Insurance.
Do keep up the good work.
Hi Gautam
Thanks for commenting.
1. I had did a spell check before putting the content in WORD .. also glanced through it once.. Which spelling are you pointing too? May be the grammer is wrong at few places, if you can point them out it would be great
2. I refer to people as INVESTORS in general even if its an insurance thing. Everyone who is dealing with money is investor in my opinion. I don’t mean they have to INVEST, but for referring them I use the word. What word do you think would be appropriate?
Manish
Information is very useful.common people can take policy
Thanks
In the column PORTABILITY, you wrote ‘profitability’ so kindly correct it….!
THanks for pointing that out .. I corrected it !
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