Apr 23, 2007 01:30 PM
12166 Views
This is one of the most important developments which, apparently has not been given the publicity it deserves. I learnt about it 2 days back, following a personal experience and thought I must share the information as readers may benefit.
Houston, U.S.A., hosts the annual oil drillers' conference every year in the 1st week of May. My father, being in the oil business, has been regularly attending the conference every year. He combines the trip with visits to collaborators in London, Singapore, en route and a few in America and Canada, so makes a month long trip from 3rd week of April onwards. This has been an annual routine since 1984.
He has adequate secretarial staff to make his airlines, hotel bookings and fix meetings etc. However as I am his only son and a specialist in medicine, his health affairs are entirely my responsibility. The problem has been of getting him insured medically. There was no problem in the initial years. Just an ECG, an internist's certificate of fitness, pay the premium and travel.
When he crossed 70 years age, the private insurers had just entered general insurance and a few obliged for 2 to 3 years. Once he crossed 75 years age, no private insurer would cover him. I spoke to the government agencies. Since I give them business, they agreed to insure him, provided the regional manager at Delhi gave his personal approval. For that we had to get a detailed executive health check done in march, including stress testing and detailed blood, ultrasound etc. Then the approval would come.
This year he has crossed 80 years age, actually on 1st Sep 2006. So the regional manager expressed his helplessness and said that they will not be able to insure him. I told my insurance agent to find someone who would. She saw his ticket and programme and groaned, 'sir why have you got this written?' Stamped was-wheelchair for senior citizen confirmed at all arrival and departure points. I told her this was a courtesy they gave to business class passengers over 75 years to make transit easier esp at the longer airports like Heathrow. She was sceptic.
However, just 5 days back, she rang me up and said that she had been able to get my father insured. I paid the premium of 17110 rs(lower than the 26000 we paid last year.).Finally, the policy in hand, my father is leaving tonight.
On detailed questioning I found out that Reliance GIC LTD has started a travel insurance for age group 80 to 97 years, but the maximum cover they will give for this age group will be 50 thousand dollars.
This is absolutely fantastic and a forward looking step. Other countries were offering medical insurance to this age group but not Indian companies. Now there are lots of older Indians who stay in India and their kids are NR Is. The kids are not able to come here frequently and the older parents do not want to travel without medical insurance because even a simple injury requiring 4 stitches can cost 4000 dollars in America. I, as a doctor, had lots of difficulty finding insurance cover for these people. Indians do not want to leave their children in debt after their deaths, so they would take the easy way out and not travel.
Now, with this scheme available, more elderly people could look forward to travelling even on those lovely cruises.
