NIC's special health policy for senior citizens

Bangalore, Jun 26: The National Insurance Company (NIC), one of the top five insurers in the Asia Pacific region, will launch a specially designed health insurance product for senior citizens from October one, its Chairman and Managing Director N Ramaswamy informed today.

Speaking to newspersons after launching ''the Dhanvanthri Bima Policy,'' jointly with State Bank of Mysore (SBM) for the latter's account holders here, he said the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) was expected to give its permission soon for the senior citizens' health insurance policy.

Mr Ramaswamy said the policy was tailor-made to meet the requirements of senior citizens.

Declining to divulge details about the structure of the policy and the premium fixed for it he said the IRDA had sought several clarifications on this particular policy and the company had provided all the details. ''The IRDA is expected to give its nod in a few days and NIC, which has over 970 offices spread across the country, will launch it on October one,'' Mr Ramaswamy informed that the NIC also planned to launch two exclusive health Insurance schemes for the benefit of youth below the age of 21.

He said the NIC had 12 third party administrators (TPAs) working under it and their performance and capability would be monitored by a separate department.

To a question, Mr Ramaswamy said the NIC also planned to float a separate subsidiary to deal with the healthcare sector as it had tremendous potential to offer.

UNI