Employees’ health and benefits study by Insurance broker Marsh India revealed that there has been a drop of around 76% in companies providing health insurance cover facilities to the employees’ parents under group mediclaim policy. The main reason attributable to the same is high premium cost.
The study also disclosed the fact that in policies where parents are covered, majority of the claims come from the employee’s parents thereby increasing the cost of insurance premium. Survey reveals that companies with young employees that provide health insurance for parents also, 60% of the claims are for parents and 25% accounts for maternity claims. Based on the above fact many companies have discontinued including parents of the employees in group medical insurance.
Many companies, as an alternative to the above, have come out with the proposal that employees could include their parents by paying the premium amount from their pocket. However in this case, employees with healthy parents will not be willing to pay while those with pre existing alignment will choose to pay, making it inevitable for insurance companies to hike premium rates. It was also observed that after parent’s inclusion for group mediclaim was made chargeable to employees, large number of employees opted not to buy the same.
Option available to the parents covered under group mediclaim policy is that they should switch the insurer through portability route to buy insurance in case employer discontinues the policy.
Mr. Sanjay Kedia, Managing Director, Marsh India also said that there is a urgent need for parental insurance covering existing disease which will provide benefits through collective bargaining and health management.
According to Mr. Segar Sampathkumar, General Manager and Head, New India Assurance, group mediclaim policy without cover to parents will become a big social issue.
