Big shock for senior citizens! The insurance sector regulator, the IRDAI, has allowed insurance companies to increase the premium of health insurance policies of people aged 60 years and above every year by up to 10%. This means the elderly will have to pay up to 10% higher premium every subsequent year if they want to keep their policy active. How will govt deepen insurance penetration? On one hand, the government talks about making insurance affordable for and accessible to more and more people. And, on the other side, the top insurance body of the country has allowed companies to hike premiums. Insurers can hike premium in excess of 10% if…. This has been mentioned in a recent circular issued by the IRDAI on Jan 31, 2025. But not only this, the authority has also allowed insurers to hike the premiums by more than 10% upon taking permission from it. But! Its not all bad news for the elderly. On the contrary, the insurance watchdog has also taken some steps in favour of them as well! Lets see what are those: Two steps of IRDAI in senior citizens' favour: First, in the long run, the insurance policies may become cheaper, thanks to a particular advice of the IRDAI for the insurance industry . The regulator has advised the insurers to negotiate package rates of senior citizen specific individual health insurance products with the empanelled hospitals and bring down the rates similar to package rates of a government health insurance scheme, PMJAY. As the package rates of the government insurance scheme are low, so that of health insurance products may fall too. This would create room for premium reduction. And secondly, the insurance watchdog has also made it mandatory that no insurance company will be able to call back an individual health insurance product already offered to the senior citizens without prior approval of the IRDAI. This will shed unnecessary apprehension of the elderly in their golden days.Original Article