Standard travel insurance soon

The Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has proposed a standard travel insurance policy with common coverage and policy wordings across the industry. The Authority expects the new guidelines to take effect from April 1, 2021.

The draft guidelines issued by IRDAI on December 28, 2020, stated, ‘The standard product shall have the basic mandatory covers as specified in draft guidelines which shall be uniform across the market. The product may be both an individual product and a group product.’

Key features of the policy:

There shall be no restrictions on the age of entry. However, the proposer shall be of a minimum of age 18 years, as per the draft guidelines. The proposer is the person who takes the insurance cover, he/she is also called the policyholder.

There are five variants under domestic travel

Travel by any mode of public transport (within city)

Travel by any mode of public transport (outside city)

Train journey

Air travel

Domestic tours involving road, water, train and air travel and four under overseas travel: Long-term trip (students); short-term trip (tours/leisure and covers travel through road, water, train and air; multi-trip during a policy period (business); and coverage only for travel (onward  and return)

The nomenclature of the product shall be Standard Travel Insurance Policy, succeeded by the name of the insurance company.

The standard product shall also be offered on a family floater basis. When you buy travel insurance for the entire family, it is known as a family floater. It provides insurance covers for the entire family for the sum assured during the course of travel and only one premium is paid for such a travel policy.

The policy tenure of the standard product shall be the duration of the journey of the policyholder as a fare-paying passenger and during their stay overseas, in case of the overseas travel policy, as specified in the policy schedule.

Premium under this product shall be on a pan-India basis and no geographic location/zone-based pricing is allowed. Pricing in respect of overseas travel insurance is permitted based on the country or region of travel and stay. For example, Asia (except Japan & Korea), Europe, USA & Canada, Asia (Japan & Korea), other countries, as per the draft guidelines issued by the IRDAI.