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Mental illness has to be a big part of insurance policies

26-Oct-2020

Throughout my school and college years, Bai lived with us, moving across cities, helping us grow, for all practical purposes a dear family member. As she grew older, Bai began imagining that people were attacking her. We could not understand what had happened, but she went back to her village and died a few years later, untreated for schizophrenia. Mental illnesses are prevalent, some consider it an epidemic, and this has only worsened during this pandemic. The challenges in addressing mental illness are considerable: building patient, doctor awareness and treatment capacity. Insurance currently has a minor role in mental illness and we could do more.

The first issue is that the mentally ill find it difficult to buy health insurance, even in minor conditions. This leaves them uncovered even for physical illnesses. I have seen many proposals rejected for conditions such as stress and anxiety, and proposals for more serious mental conditions get turned down. So, most persons with mental health issues will not disclose their condition, exposing themselves to claim rejection later. Some families with mentally challenged children have health insurance because this was bought many years ago when the child’s health condition was not asked for. Today that would be difficult.

The second issue is that guidelines to insure persons with mental health issues are not explicit. In June, the regulator asked all insurers to upload underwriting approaches for mentally ill on their websites by 1 October. The thought being that such persons or their guardians should know how insurers will treat their application. When I checked some days ago, only a handful had complied and the policies put up were not meaningful. For example, insurers said, “we treat physical and mental illnesses at par. Like physical illnesses, mental illnesses will be subjected to evaluation and basis the outcomes would either be accepted as standard or with additional premium and/or waiting periods or rejected basis the chronicity, severity and complications due to the disease or treatment, and “acceptance of proposals with declaration of any conditions falling under the mentioned categories would be as per underwriting guidelines of the product and pre-policy medical tests." This is difficult to decipher, unhelpful and appears to be a declaration to tick the regulatory box.

Had Bai been diagnosed for schizophrenia, the cost of treatment to allow her a full, normal life would have been no more than a few hundred rupees a month. This incident took place 35 years ago, but on mental health, time has stood still.

Source : Live Mint

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