RELIANCE LIFE MAKES FORAY INTO HEALTH INSURANCE

 BY PANKAJ KUMAR
                                                                                                                                                           KOLKATA: Reliance Life Insurance Company (RLIC), part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, on Thursday announced its foray into the health insurance market with the launch of Reliance Life Care for You, its first pure-reimbursement health insurance plan for individuals and family members. It also said that it was targeting to make the coverage a life-long one and has begun studies to examine its feasibility. At present, the policy offers assured renewability till 75 years.
The product was launched by Malay Ghosh, President and Executive Director, at a press conference here. “Our venture into the health insurance sector is a natural extension of our life insurance business,” he said. “We aim to be among the top three health insurers by 2012,” Mr. Ghosh added.
He said that the objective was to provide health insurance to five lakh lives with a premium business of Rs.150 crore within this year and take the figure to Rs.2,000 crore in five years.
The product is a comprehensive long-term family floater plan that addresses healthcare expense needs of the entire family, including emergencies, under a single policy. The policy term under this plan is three years with the premium fixed for the entire period, irrespective of the claims.
The product offers the insured a cover that includes primary member, spouse, dependent children aged between 3 months and 21 years as well as parents and parents-in-law. The primary member can opt for the plan between 18 years and 60 years of age with assured renewability till 75 years for family members, dependent parents and in-laws.
A unique feature of the product is that it includes maternity benefit and also 150 day-care treatments, wherein the insured or family member covered under the plan, need not stay in the hospital for a minimum period of 24 continuous hours.
The coverage ranges from Rs.2 lakh to Rs.10 lakh with a no-claim bonus of 5 per cent.