Idra approves companies opting for health insurance policies

Business Desk :
The Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (IDRA) has allowed life insurance companies to offer full-fledged health insurance policies, ending the monopoly BY non-life insurers in the local market.
The latest move, issued via a circular on Thursday, is expected to create scopes for making the market competitive and the products cheaper as all the 81 insurance companies would from now on bid for the market share.

The non-life insurance companies have been offering the health insurance policies, with usually a short-term or not more than one-year tenor, to the clients solely since 2014 under a regulation issued at that time.
However, the regulation became invalid with the issuance of the latest circular that also allowed the life insurers to design, price and sell medical products in the market.
Health insurance products have been getting popular since the Covid-19 outbreak.

The corporate houses are the major clients in Bangladesh.
However, the life insurers earlier could have offered health coverage to their clients but only as a supplement to their main life policies, which is termed “rider” in the industry.
The life insurers inherently get more customers than the non-life ones that offer health products in the retail space.
The new order will help them get more people covered under the medical insurance at a more affordable premium as now the market is open for all, said an official at the IDRA.
He informed that the life firms sold around Tk1,100 crore worth of health related supplementary products or riders in 2022 and said their business is expected to boost further with the latest order.

The non-life health business was concentrated mainly on the corporate groups, he said, adding: “The individual health policies will be popular soon.”