Chennai: Responding to the public’s anxiety about the surging pandemic, insurance startup Digit Insurance is now offering health coverage for the novel coronavirus COVID-19 infections.
India currently has six patients who have tested positive for the virus, and six others quarantined on suspicion of having been infected.
The policy, which comes under the company’s Digit Health Care Plus plan, is a need-based insurance scheme for which anyone below the age of 60 years can insure themselves and others for a sum of up to Rs 2 lakh or for as little as Rs 25,000.
Digit Insurance will pay policy holders who have tested positive for COVID-19 up to 100 per cent of the sum insured for treatment costs.
For persons who have been quarantined at a government or military hospital on suspicion of having been infected, Digit Insurance will pay 50 per cent of the sum insured. The insurer’s website says this is applicable even if the patient’s tests are later found negative, as it covers the screening and treatment costs.
There are some caveats. Only patients whose tests were conducted by authorized centres of ICMR – National Institute of Virology, Pune, will be eligible for claims. Also, only those who have not travelled to China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Italy, Iran, Kuwait and Bahrain since December 1,2019 are eligible.
It also stipulates that one should not have been in contact with any person suspected to have contracted the infection.
Treatment taken abroad is also not covered under this policy.
