The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) advised a standard travel insurance policy with common policy wordings and coverage across the industry. The increased penetration of the product was the aim of this move.
According to the draft guidelines issued on 28 December 2020, by the IRDAI, as specified in draft guidelines the standard product shall have the basic mandatory covers which shall be uniform across the market. The product maybe both as a group product and as an individual product. As per the draft guidelines the proposer shall be of a minimum of age 18 years. The person who takes the insurance cover is the proposer, he/she is also called the policyholder.
The penetration of travel insurance is yet to take off though there are several travel insurance products available in India. The insuring public may find it difficult to choose an appropriate product because each product has its own unique features. It is considered essential to have a standard travel product which shall provide a safety net to every individual who is travelling to deepen the penetration of travel insurance.
Standard Travel Insurance Policy shall be the nomenclature of the product succeeded by the name of the insurance company. The standard product shall also be provided on a family floater basis. Family floater means buying travel insurance for the entire family. During the course of travel, it provides insurance covers for the entire family for the sum assured and only one premium is paid for such a travel policy. Under domestic travel, there will be five variants.
As specified in the policy schedule, if the policyholder is a fare-paying passenger the policy tenure of the standard product shall be the duration of the journey. The overseas travel policy during their time of staying overseas. The premium under this product shall get on a pan-India basis zone-and no zone-based/ no geographic location-based pricing is allowed. The overseas travel insurance pricing is in respect of the country or region of travel and stay.
