Demystifying health insurance regulations

Abstract

The insurance regulatory landscape has changed over the last one and a half decades. in case of health insurance, there has been a 39-fold increase in the premium over the last sixteen years. There are multiple factors that may have contributed to this growth including the role played by IRDAI. The insurance regulator has played an important role by introducing several regulations and guidelines related to health insurance business. in this article, an attempt has been made to "demystify" the recent health insurance regulations. The paper also highlight the key developments in the health insurance industry (chronology from 1999 to 2016), health care financing in india, the role of health insurance and how the recent regulations is going to impact the customers, insurance companies and the industry as whole.