The thought is not new. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has been contemplating a plain vanilla standard health insurance plan common to all non-life companies for nearly a decade. The plan never took off because standardisation would have meant stifling innovation. But with seven standalone health insurance and around 22 non-life companies offering more than 100 health insurance products, the customers are not just spoilt for choice but are often confused. Irdai’s new draft, released on 19 February, addresses this confusion by proposing a basic health insurance plan, named Standard Mediclaim Policy, which will be comparable across insurers.
