Lesser commission for senior citizens

MUMBAI: For the first time, New India's health insurance policies include a family floater plan. Under the new scheme, a family of four can buy one policy with one sum assured and get discounts on the premium paid for each member of the family. Any member of the family can claim one or more times during the year up to the maximum limit of the sum insured of the policy.The policy will be issued to people up to the age of 60 including the husband, wife and two dependent children.
On Monday, TOI reported the changes in India's largest general insurance player New India Assurance's policies like paying a higher premium as you grow older or if you live in a Zone I city like Mumbai. However, the family floater policy does not cover parents, parents-in-law or siblings even if they are residing with the person buying the insurance. The minimum sum assured is Rs 2 lakh and the maximum is Rs 5 lakh. The premium rates are the same as per the rate card for the individual mediclaim policy 2007.
So if the person buying the policy is 36 and is looking at buying a policy for his family of four of Rs 2,00,000, he will pay Rs 2,990. Over and above this to cover his wife and two children, he will have to pay 50% of his premium as additional charge for his wife and 25% each for the children. The other conditions based on differential ratings for zones and such apply for this new policy as well. Insurance experts say the advantage of this policy is that the whole family gets covered at discounts and the policy becomes popular because families are unlikely to make high claims for all members in a year.
The New Mediclaim Policy 2007 of New India has also brought in changes in the structure of payments to agents and brokers. Due to the rise in claims incidence in the older age groups, New India has lowered the commission rates payable to agents and brokers for the higher age groups. So while the agency commission for policies sold and renewed up to the age of 40 is 15%, it falls to 5% for policies sold to people above the age of 60. An industry source said this was being done primarily to discourage sale of policies to senior citizens.
Incidentally, United India Insurance also released its new health insurance policies in Chennai on Monday. As per the company's plan, there will now be three new schemes available to customers - Platinum (where the sum insured ranges from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1,00,000), Gold (ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5,00,000) and Senior Citizens (Rs 50,000 to Rs 3,00,000). Unlike New India, the sum insured can be increased in multiples of Rs 25,000 and the prices are standard nationally.
So, while a New India customer pays the highest in Mumbai — Rs 2,990 for a Rs 2,00,000 policy for a 36 year old while the rest of the country pays Rs 2,845; a United India customer will pay Rs 2,951 in any part of the country. Also, the platinum policy will cover people from the age of 3 months to 35 years, gold will cover people from 36 years to 60 years and the senior citizens policy will cover people from the age of 61-80.
The company has put caps on payments for certain diseases for the gold and senior citizens schemes. So pre and post hospitalisation expenses will be a maximum of 10% of the sum insured. Senior citizens will have to share the total expenses for major illnesses with the company on an 80:20 basis.