Need to detariff insurance industry says IRDA Chairman

'Need to detariff insurance industry says IRDA Chairman: "I think health insurance is an area that is riddled with problems. There is no denying of that. The basic problem is that we do not have individual health profiles. In the West, from the time the child is born records are maintained. This is not there in our country. In the absence of such record maintenance, the insurance companies find it difficult to assess the eligibility of an individual for health insurance. The second thing is that they (the health insurance companies) also have difficulty in fixing an appropriate premium for various kinds of diseases in the absence of information. So, lack of information is one of the major problems we have today, which is preventing the spread of health insurance. We are trying to address that particular problem. We are now trying to build up data by compiling whatever data is available at different places. We have constituted a Working Group, which has already met twice and created one more sub-group to look at only the data currently available and analyse them."
I feel the entry of private health insurance companies into India will mark a dramatic change in the way healthcare is delivered. Their entry will be a major catalyst towards the adoption of EMRs ( electronic medical records) and PHRs
( personal health records), which make a lot of business sense !