The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), India organized a One Day Open House Consultation on Health Insurance of Persons with Disabilities at the Jio World Convention Centre, Mumbai on 25th August, 2023, in collaboration with National Centre for Promotion of Employment of Disabled Persons and Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India.

Inaugurating the consultation, the NHRC Member, Dr Dnyaneshwar Manohar Mulay said, " Disability has to be looked at as a condition and not as a disease. Insurance companies need to follow an accessible and affordable approach to providing insurance policies to the PwDs."

Dr Mulay further said concerted efforts should be made to further empower differently-abled persons. He expressed the hope that such consultations will pave the way for finding solutions to the problems being faced by differently-abled persons in getting insurance.

The consultation broadly aimed to discuss the differences between  insurance policies offered by the government and private entities. It further also aimed to discuss other challenges faced by PwDs vis-à-vis insurance policies and the hurdles faced by insurance companies in securing policies for them.

During the deliberations the following agendas were discussed at length:

The first agenda i.e., Identification of issues of PwDs in seeking insurance facilities wherein the discussion revolved around the issues such as the principle of non-discrimination not being followed essentially though the Act mandates the same, the existence of insurance coverage for just 21 specific disabilities, provision of insurance for only the benchmark disabilities (having 40% disability), among others.

The second agenda i.e., Identification of provisions and issues faced by insurance companies with respect of providing insurance to PwDs and way forward focussed on limitation of resources, need for disaggregated data on persons with disabilities, need for determination of accessibility standards for availing insurance policies, need to formulate and specify  criteria for considering eligibility of PwDs such as medical assessment as well as UDID certificates, need to identify a pool of representatives from disability community to represent a significant demand of insurance facility, among others.

The participants included representatives of Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), Insurance Providers and Third-Party Administrators, Key members from the National Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, National Centre for Promotion of Employment of Disabled People (NCPEDP), Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Finance and National Health Authority, Government of India.

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Source: NHRC

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