Lifelong renewal on mediclaim is offered by mono-line insurers like Max Bupa and Apollo Munich. Government insurers also offer it on specific products. Now the other private insurers will soon offer this option too, to remain competitive

Bajaj Allianz, Bharti AXA and Future Generali will soon offer mediclaim with a lifelong renewal option, as there is a clear trend in favour of this among customers who are already able to avail of this benefit from competitors, among them government insurers.

Many mediclaim customers face the possibility of termination of their policy if they outlive the maximum renewal age (usually 75 years). This may lead to all the years of premium payment coming to naught, this at a time when they are most likely to need hospitalisation. The policy renewal may be done by the insurer, but it is on a case-to-case basis. Increasing life expectancy is another reason that would make lifelong renewal an imperative offering from insurers.

According to TA Ramalingam, head-underwriting, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, "When we filed our mediclaim product over a decade ago, lifelong renewal was not as much a requirement as it is today. We want to be fair to existing customers and not turn them away after a certain age. It's not something we are looking at from the selling point. Our actuaries are working on the pricing for ages above 75years. We did not have pricing structure for higher ages."

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) wants new mediclaim products to offer lifelong renewal. It is not mandatory that existing mediclaim products also start offering it, but insurers are responding to customer needs.

Bajaj Allianz and Future Generali are in the process of filing for existing product revision and new products respectively, while Bharti AXA has already filed for revision of its existing product. There was no word from ICICI Lombard on the lifelong renewal matter, till the time of publishing the article.

Dr Amarnath Ananthanarayanan, chief executive officer and managing director, Bharti AXA General Insurance says, "We filed for lifelong renewal revision in January 2011 and hope that IRDA will clear our proposal at the earliest. We will offer it post approval from the regulator."

Admitting that health insurance is all the more important as a person gets older, Dr Ananthanarayanan said it would be unfair to deny customers protection when they need it the most. "We constantly improve our products keeping our customers' requirements in mind and this is another step in that direction. We shall offer this benefit to all our customers, including our existing customers, once we receive the regulatory approval," he said.

He explained that the pricing is done in conjunction with the actuarial team, especially to address the challenge of data inadequacy in India. "Of course, we had to consider many other factors, such as medical inflation, the change in life expectancy, and last but not the least the affordability of customers who are in the older age bracket, to come up with the premium levels."

According to Shreeraj Deshpande, head of health insurance, Future Generali India Insurance, "We are in the process of filing health products (indemnity products) which will have no maximum exit age or lifelong renewals."