Does Porting Health Insurance Reset the Waiting Period?

You can easily modify your current policy by increasing the sum insured and coverage while retaining the waiting periods from your previous policy under health insurance portability.

Although you are usually not required to serve the reset waiting period again when you port your health insurance policy. Instead, the waiting period already served under your previous health coverage will be deducted from the waiting period of the new insurance policy.

Keep reading to gain more insights.

Does Health Insurance Portability Affect Waiting Periods?

Suppose you had a policy with ₹5 lakhs coverage for 2 years and decided to increase it to ₹7 lakhs in the 3rd year. The impact on claims may vary:

• Claiming a Disease with the Same Waiting Period:If a new insurer has a 2-year waiting period for a condition, your claim will be approved up to your original ₹5 lakh coverage. However, you may be required to pay any additional costs yourself.


• Claiming a Disease with a Shorter Waiting Period: You can claim up to the policy's coverage limit immediately for illnesses covered after a short period, such as seasonal illnesses from day 31.


• Claiming a Disease with a Longer Waiting Period: You must complete the remaining one year before you can claim, in case the condition now has a 3 year waiting period under the new insurer.


• Adding a New Healthy Member:They must follow the new insurer's waiting period rules, while the continuity benefits remain for those already insured.


• Adding a New Member with a Pre-Existing Condition: The new member will have to serve the entire waiting period as per the new insurer, usually around 3 years. However, the existing members retain continuity benefits from the old policy.


• Porting with the Same Coverage:Continuity benefits carry over for the portion already served in case you keep the same sum insured while porting. However, accumulated bonuses from the old policy may not continue.

What are the Additional Tips to Keep in Mind While Porting a Health Insurance Policy?

Here are some additional aspects that you must keep in mind before porting your health insurance policy:

• If needed, you have the option to return to your previous insurer even while your policy is in the process of being ported.


• In case you return to your old insurer, they will take you back without asking any additional conditions or an increase in your insurance premiums.


• There are no porting charges, and you only need to pay the insurance premiums of the new policy chosen.


• There is a 30-day grace period for your health coverage while the porting is in process.


• You can even choose to port from one plan to another within the same insurance company.


• The new insurer is required to offer a minimum health insurance policy equivalent to the sum insured of the previous policy. However, you can also opt to increase the minimum sum insured at the time of its renewal.

Porting your health insurance doesn’t automatically restart your waiting periods. However, any increase in sum insured or addition of new members may come with a fresh waiting period.