Even as awareness about the need for insurance cover has grown in the wake of the Covid pandemic, insurers are also making attempts at designing new health cover products with an eye on meeting the unique needs of specific segments in a diverse market, such as children with special needs and the LGBTQIA+ community.
Employee benefit platform Nova Benefits on Wednesday announced the roll-out of LGBTQIA+ or same-sex corporate health insurance cover for companies.
“As a part of the LGBTQIA+ corporate health insurance cover offered via Nova Benefits, an employee can enrol their same-sex partner as a dependant, along with other immediate family members,” it said, adding that the policy allows dependants to be included irrespective of their sexual orientation and gender identity.
“There is also an option to increase the cover for LGBTQIA+ employees and provide maternity, paternity, and childcare benefits,” it further said, adding that standard health insurance plans do not consider relationships beyond heterosexual couples.
Nova currently provides LGBTQIA+ corporate health insurance to several companies, including Snapdeal, SplashLearn, FlexiLoans Technologies Pvt Ltd, and Dev Synthesis, and looks forward to having more companies on board in the near future.
Development disabilities covered
Similarly, Mom’s Belief, an online platform, has launched the country’s first health insurance cover for children with special needs.
With Mom’s Belief Care as the master policy holder of the group health insurance, underwritten by Care Health Insurance, families enrolled with the scheme can choose annual insurance options ranging from ₹1.5 lakh to ₹4 lakh. The plans cover a number of developmental disabilities for children with special needs.
Nitin Bindlish, Founder and CEO, Mom’s Belief, said, “We started working on this policy for quite some time for special needs children -- autism, ADHD, Down’s syndrome, any development delay. The only exclusion is cerebral palsy.”
The entry age is 3 years to 65 years though the company is trying for three months also, he said, adding that it covers both IPD and OPD.
“Our endeavour is also to add dental and eye covers to the policy soon,” he said.