New Delhi: Srinivasu Chakravarthula received an email from SBI Life Insurance Company in Hyderabad stating that his son’s insurance application had been rejected due to “vision impairment of the parent”.
Chakravarthula, who is the Director of Product Accessibility at Freshworks Inc, had applied for the SBI Life Smart Scholar Scheme for his eight-year-old son. The scheme helps parents plan for the education, marriage, and other future goals of their children.
“I went to the insurance company in Hyderabad for some work, when the branch manager requested me to apply for this insurance. The first EMI was debited, later got credited, and a few weeks later, I received an email saying ‘proposal for the scheme was rejected based on the vision impairment of the parents,’” said Chakravarthula.
The 43-year-old, who has worked with Yahoo India, PayPal, HCLTech, and Watermark, said that since the policy was in his son’s name, the company couldn’t reject it citing disability.
“The company does not have the right to reject insurance on the grounds of disability. We did the process, including documentation, and even disclosed my disability. I wrote to the SBI chairman, but did not get any positive response,” he added.
The National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) escalated the matter by writing to the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra. SBI Life reached out to Chakravarthula only after the matter made it to TV news.
“The insurance company offered to review my insurance application, and they agreed to process it at a higher premium, given I am diabetic,” Chakravarthula said.
He has not replied to the company yet. While he does not mind paying a higher premium, he is questioning SBI Life’s policies for people with disabilities.
“Regarding the case in question, we have carefully reviewed the individual’s requirements who is also an existing customer. We are actively looking into his current insurance needs and working towards providing the appropriate insurance solution,” read an official statement from SBI Life.
Rejected claims, delayed reimbursements
Executive Director of NCPEDP Arman Ali has long been working with people with disabilities who struggle to get access to health insurance.
“People with disabilities are blatantly denied insurance in India just because of their identity. Insurance is, anyway, not affordable for everyone, and the percentage among people with disabilities [getting insurance] is even smaller,” Ali said.
“NCPEDP has received several calls over the years from across the country about such cases. I, myself, got insurance in 2023, after repeatedly applying for seven to eight years,” he said.
Insurance helps people with disabilities reduce the financial burden from medical expenses. However, getting an insurance application approved isn’t easy. Chakravarthula is just one example among many of the challenges people with disabilities face during the process.
Two-year-old Jagrati Choudhary was born with multiple disabilities. The child needed regular occupational therapy and medical assistance. But to get her these facilities, the family had to jump through several hoops. Jagrati’s parents were able to enrol her in the Niramaya health insurance scheme, but the extensive documentation it required was mentally exhausting. And the delays in reimbursement only added to the family’s financial stress.
Anjali Vyas, who lives in Bhandara, Maharashtra, had her insurance claim repeatedly rejected due to ‘genetic conditions’. The 32-year-old has a condition called Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a chronic autoimmune neurological disorder, which is not a genetic condition.
Vyas’s father had corporate health insurance through New India Insurance that reimbursed her medical expenses during the first treatment, but refused to do so when she had a relapse. Getting her reimbursement approved was an eight-month-long process that left her “emotionally and physically drained”.
After her father retired in 2022, she had to search for a year before she found a policy that covered MS.
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‘Why the discrimination?’
NCPEDP has analysed the data provided by the Ayushman Bharat Yojana, according to which 42 per cent of people with disabilities have not applied for insurance due to a lack of information. The report stated that 22 per cent could not find support from insurance providers.
The data also showed that 46 per cent of insurance applications were rejected due to the exclusion of disability–specific tests and treatments. In 37 per cent of cases, the insurance providers did not respond to disabled applicants.
After a 2022 Delhi High Court order, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority sent a circular to insurance companies, asking them to introduce schemes for people with disabilities. According to Ali, however, everything is only in name.
“The schemes are mentioned on the website, but to access them, a person with disabilities has to go through a tough battle. People are ready to invest, then why this discrimination?”
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)