The extended lockdown in the wake of the covid-19 outbreak has impacted businesses across sectors, and one major fallout of this has been employees dealing with pay cuts and job loss.
In a bid to offer some relief to policyholders dealing with liquidity crunch, on April 21, the Insurance Regulatory and Development and Authority of India (Irdai) asked all general and standalone health insurers to give policyholders the option to pay health insurance premiums in instalments.
In September last year, the regulator had asked insurers to offer this option, but it wasn’t mandatory. “We were just asked to give this option to policyholders but it was left to the insurer’s discretion.