When it comes to the senior citizen health insurance in India, there are hardly any insurance companies who cover senior citizens at broader length and the Indian insurance sector blames it on government lackadaisical approach. “We are not seeing any initiative from the government on senior citizen health care insurance,” Aloke Gupta, consultant, foundation of research, training and education (FORTE), told Governance Now on the sidelines of a FICCI conference on health insurance.

“The government has to step in because the senior citizen insurance plan does not really make money,” Gupta added.

The government regulation on health insurance stipulates senior citizens insurance up to 65 years of age but the ground reality is different as insurance companies do not have many products for people aged above 65.

“It is do with the cost,” says Antony Jacob, co-chairman of the Ficci advisory group on health insurance. “Some small steps have been taken in coverage of senior citizen insurance plans on health. If government can’t fund it on its own, it can promote it through public, private partnership (PPP).”

However, the Ficci report talked about uniformising premium calculation by standardising determination of age in this regard.

The report titled “Health Insurance in India – The Way Forward” said that India has poor penetration of health insurance. “Even adjusting for below- poverty line families, those covered by government schemes and excluding those in rural areas, 14.3 crore people in urban areas alone remain untouched by any form of health insurance,” the report said.

“The health insurance industry, in India, though growing at a healthy rate has a low penetration of only 4.22 percent of the population,” the report held.

The study also noted that consumers are angry about poor service and delay in claim settlement. “Their expectations about the availability of the desired range of products remain largely unmet,” it said.

The industry body also observed that because of proper guidelines on health insurance it has not penetrated the level as it should have been. The Ficci has been in the process of preparing guidelines of 20 common diseases which will be given to ministry of health in June. The standard treatment guidelines for diseases will cover cataract, respiratory diseases, diabetes, cancer (selective) etc.

There are no such published guidelines till date, however, the industry feels that such guidelines will boost the penetration level of health insurance in the country. “The study calls for strengthening of healthcare delivery infrastructure; mandatory health insurance from the nursery level to college and evolution of standard treatment protocols with cost indicators.