| Porting a health policy in India is a paperwork story. Done right, you keep five years of waiting-period credit and your accumulated NCB. Done wrong, you start over. Most readers find out which one only at claim time. |
The Short Version (2-Minute Read)
1. You apply to the NEW insurer, not the old one, at least 45 days before your renewal date. The new insurer has 15 days to decide after receiving your data through the IIB portal. If they go silent past that window, the proposal is deemed accepted under Clause 9 of the IRDAI portability guidelines.
2. What carries over: sum insured, accumulated No Claim Bonus, time already served on PED waiting period, time on specific-illness waiting periods, and months counted toward the 60-month moratorium. The 2024 Master Circular extended portability protection across all of these.
3. What does NOT carry: the new policy's sub-limits, room-rent caps, co-pays, modern-treatment limits, or its NCB structure. Those are the new insurer's terms. Any sum insured increment beyond your existing cover starts a fresh waiting period clock on the increment alone.
4. Porting is a right to apply, not a right to be accepted. The new insurer can decline you on underwriting grounds — claim history, age, current diagnosis. They cannot deny continuity benefits if they accept you.
5. The September 2025 GST exemption applies identically to ported and fresh individual policies. CBIC Notification 16/2025 made individual health insurance 0% GST from 22 September 2025. Group policies still attract 18 percent.
The full IRDAI process, the actual portability form, the rupee math on a real porting case from Star Health to HDFC ERGO and Niva Bupa, and the five situations where porting is the wrong move, below.
By Dinesh Kumar S · Published January 22 , 2026 · 17 min read
Last verified against IRDAI Master Circular on Health Insurance Business dated 29 May 2024, IRDAI (Insurance Products) Regulations 2024, IRDAI Migration and Portability Guidelines 2020, CBIC Notification No. 16/2025 dated 17 September 2025, and Council for Insurance Ombudsmen Annual Report 2023-24, on 10 May 2026.
A reader from Whitefield, Bengaluru wrote to me last month. Let us call him Rajesh, 42, working at a mid-tier IT services company. His Star Health family floater was up for renewal on 14 June 2026. He had been with them five years. ₹10 lakh sum insured, family of three (himself, his wife at 39, his daughter at 8), and the cumulative bonus had quietly grown his effective cover to roughly ₹15 lakh over the claim-free years. He was paying around ₹14,500 a year. Everything was fine until his mother-in-law's hospitalisation in late 2025, which Star eventually settled but took 41 days and three rounds of "kindly resubmit the discharge summary" to do it.
His question was simple, and you have probably had it too. Can he move to HDFC ERGO Optima Secure or Niva Bupa Reassure 3.0 without losing the five years he has already served on the policy. Or is he going to start the PED waiting period from zero. Will the cumulative bonus carry, or does it die when the Star policy ends.
The short answer is that he can move, the years carry, the NCB rupee value carries, and the moratorium months carry. The long answer has six or seven sharp edges that nobody warns you about until you are standing on them. This article is the long answer. I have used Rajesh's situation as the spine because the rules become much clearer when you walk them through one real case rather than describe them in the abstract. Names changed, premium and IDV figures rounded.
In This Article
▸ What Porting Actually Transfers — and What It Quietly Does Not
▸ The Legal Spine — Master Circular, the IIB Portal, and the 45-Day Clock
▸ The Portability Form, the Documents, and the Order in Which to Submit Them
▸ NCB on Porting — The Part Most Articles Get Half-Wrong
▸ Waiting Periods, PED Credit, and the Moratorium Clock
▸ Rajesh's Rupee Math — Star to HDFC ERGO and Niva Bupa, Side by Side
▸ Group to Retail — This Is Migration, Not Portability
▸ Five Situations Where Porting Is the Wrong Move
▸ If the New Insurer Rejects or Stalls — Bima Bharosa and Beyond
What Porting Actually Transfers — and What It Quietly Does Not
The IRDAI defines portability narrowly. From Chapter I, Clause 1.5 of the IRDAI (Insurance Products) Regulations 2024: portability means the facility provided to the health insurance policyholder, including all members covered under a family floater, to transfer credits gained for pre-existing diseases and specific waiting periods from one insurer to another. That is the legal floor. The 29 May 2024 Master Circular on Health Insurance Business (Ref: IRDAI/HLT/CIR/PRO/84/5/2024) widened the protection in the most useful way for policyholders. The list of things you are entitled to carry to the acquiring insurer is more generous than people assume.
What carries on porting under the 2024 framework:
The sum insured of your existing policy. The accumulated No Claim Bonus or Cumulative Bonus, treated at its rupee value. Specific waiting periods already served (the 24-month or 36-month wait for cataract, hernia, knee replacement, varicose veins, and so on). Time served on the pre-existing disease waiting period, capped at 36 months under the 2024 rules, down from the old 48-month cap. Time counted toward the 60-month moratorium period, after which the insurer cannot contest a claim except on grounds of proven fraud or permanent exclusions. None of this requires a fresh start. None of it depends on the new insurer's discretion. The moratorium months carry across multiple porting events if you happen to switch insurers more than once over the years.
So far so good. What is the catch. Several. They are worth saying plainly because the marketing pages do not.
The first catch is that the new policy's structural terms are the new insurer's, not your old policy's. If your old Star Health Family Health Optima had no room-rent capping but the plan you are porting to has a 1 percent room-rent sub-limit and a 10 percent co-pay above age 60, those new terms apply from day one. Your "five years served" does not shield you from a different policy structure. I had to explain this to a reader in Hyderabad last year who had assumed his ported policy would inherit his old policy's terms wholesale. It does not work that way. The credits transfer. The contract changes.
The second catch is that if you increase the sum insured at the time of porting (say from ₹10 lakh to ₹20 lakh), the increment is treated as a fresh sum insured. PED waiting period restarts on the additional ₹10 lakh. The moratorium clock starts afresh on the increment too. Only the original ₹10 lakh enjoys the carried-forward credit. This is in Clause 13 of the 29 May 2024 master circular, and it has been IRDAI's consistent position since 2020. If you are going to port, port for the same sum insured first. Upgrade after a year through your new insurer's life-stage or top-up benefit. Bundling the port and the upgrade is one of the most common ways readers accidentally re-create waiting periods they have already served.
The third catch is that porting is a right to apply, not a right to be accepted. The acquiring insurer underwrites you fresh. They look at age, claim history, current diagnoses. They can reject you, load the premium, or impose permanent exclusions. The Master Circular says they cannot deny continuity benefits if they accept you. They are under no obligation to accept you in the first place. Senior citizens, applicants with recent claims, and those with newly diagnosed chronic conditions feel this hardest at the underwriting stage.
The Legal Spine — Master Circular, the IIB Portal, and the 45-Day Clock
Three documents do most of the regulatory work here. Worth knowing the references because if you ever have to escalate, you will need to cite them.
| Document | Reference | What It Covers for Porting |
| Master Circular on Health Insurance Business | IRDAI/HLT/CIR/PRO/84/5/2024 dated 29.05.2024 | Defines portability, lists the credits that transfer, and sets a 72-hour data-sharing rule on the existing insurer when the new insurer requests data |
| IRDAI (Insurance Products) Regulations, 2024 | Notified 20.03.2024, effective 01.04.2024 | Repeals the 2016 Health Insurance Regulations. Caps the PED waiting period at 36 months and the moratorium at 60 months |
| Master Circular on Protection of Policyholders' Interests | IRDAI/PP&GR/CIR/MISC/117/9/2024 dated 05.09.2024 | Mandates the Customer Information Sheet on every policy including ported ones; lists waiting periods, sub-limits, co-pays, and exclusions in plain language |
| Guidelines on Migration and Portability of Health Insurance Policies | IRDAI/HLT/REG/CIR/003/01/2020 (and 002/01/2020) | Original procedural backbone — still good law for the application form, the group-to-retail migration mechanics, and the 45-day window |
The data exchange between insurers happens through a portal run by the Insurance Information Bureau of India, accessible at hi.portability.iib.gov.in. This is not something you log into. The new insurer pulls your past policy data — sum insured history, claim records, premiums paid, NCB accumulated — from the old insurer through this IIB pipe. The 2024 Master Circular requires the existing insurer to furnish the data within 72 hours of the request. The older 2020 guideline allowed seven working days; the 2024 circular tightened it. In practice the data move happens fast when both sides are responsive. It can stall when the old insurer's back office is sluggish, which is one practical reason the 45-day buffer exists.
Here is what a working timeline looks like, end to end.
| Day | Who Does What |
| Day 0 (T-45 from renewal) | You apply to the new insurer with the portability form, proposal form, and supporting documents. Not the old one. |
| Day 1 to Day 3 | New insurer acknowledges receipt and raises a data request to the old insurer through the IIB portal |
| Day 3 to Day 6 | Old insurer must furnish underwriting and claim data within 72 hours via IIB |
| Day 7 to Day 14 | New insurer underwrites; medical tests may be asked for if you are over 45 or have flagged conditions |
| Day 15 to Day 21 | New insurer must accept, modify, or reject within 15 days of receiving complete data. If they do not communicate a decision, the proposal is deemed accepted. |
| Day 30 to Day 45 | You pay the premium; new policy commences from the day your old policy expires; coverage continuous, no break |
If the timing slips and the new insurer has not issued by your renewal date, the existing insurer is required to extend your old policy on a pro-rata basis for at least one month so coverage does not lapse. This is from Clause 3.3 of the 2020 portability guidelines and is preserved in the 2024 framework. It is a crucial protection, but it presupposes you actually asked. Many readers do not, panic, and let the old policy lapse. A lapse beyond the 30-day grace period wipes out everything: NCB, PED credit, moratorium months. Years of premium-paying gone, because of three weeks of indecision around the renewal date.
| What carries on porting (sum insured, cumulative bonus, time served on PED, time served on specific illness waits, moratorium months) versus what does not (the new insurer's sub-limits, room-rent caps, co-pays, and the underwriting verdict). |
The Portability Form, the Documents, and the Order in Which to Submit Them
The portability form is standardised across insurers. It is set out in Annexure A of the 2020 IRDAI guidelines, and most insurers have a one-page version on their websites (HDFC ERGO, Niva Bupa, Aditya Birla Health, Care Health, ICICI Lombard — all of them publish near-identical structures because IRDAI fixed the format). What it asks for is fairly mechanical.
The existing insurer's name and policy number. The policy commencement date and current renewal date. The sum insured and any cumulative bonus or NCB earned to date. The names, dates of birth, and relationship of all members covered. Whether the existing policy is individual, family floater, or group. A claim history declaration covering the last four years (some insurers ask three; four is safer because it aligns with the 48-month look-back insurers use for underwriting). And full disclosure of all known pre-existing conditions for every member, with diagnosis dates if known.
| Document | From Whom | Why the New Insurer Wants It |
| Last 3 to 4 years of policy copies | You / existing insurer | Establishes continuous coverage without breaks. Any one-day lapse breaks continuity |
| Latest renewal premium receipt | You | Confirms the policy is active and the premium was received before risk was assumed under Section 64VB of the Insurance Act 1938 |
| Claim history / no-claim declaration | You / existing insurer | Underwriting input. A claim above ₹50,000 in the last two years often triggers loading or an exclusion |
| Endorsement letters | You | For any mid-term changes — newly disclosed conditions, sum insured upgrades, member additions |
| Discharge summaries, investigation reports | Hospital / you | Required if any member has a flagged condition or a recent hospitalisation |
| KYC documents (PAN, Aadhaar, address proof) | You | Standard, mandated by the Master Circular on Protection of Policyholders' Interests |
One thing readers underestimate is the importance of fully disclosing every known condition on the new proposal form, even though the IIB data exchange will reveal most of it anyway. The 60-month moratorium clock keeps running across the port — IRDAI was explicit about this in the 2024 circular. Accrued credits gained under the ported policy count toward the moratorium calculation. But this protection only kicks in if you did not lie at proposal stage. Hide a diabetes diagnosis from 2023 and the new insurer can repudiate a 2030 claim on grounds of fraud, regardless of moratorium. Fraud sits outside the moratorium shield. The Supreme Court has reaffirmed this principle multiple times, most recently in the LIC Jeevan Arogya line of cases on alcohol-related disclosure suppression.
Also worth knowing: the new insurer must give you a Customer Information Sheet (CIS) in the format prescribed in the 5 September 2024 Master Circular on Protection of Policyholders' Interests. The CIS lists waiting periods, sub-limits, co-pays, claim process, grievance escalation. Read this. Specifically read the Waiting Periods section and the Migration, Portability, Moratorium section before you sign the proposal. If the new policy's PED list is longer than what you saw on the brochure, the CIS is where it will surface first. A friend in Pune nearly missed a 30-month wait on hypertension-related cardiac claims buried in his ported policy's CIS. He caught it on day twelve and used the free-look — except free-look does not apply to ported policies, only fresh ones, per the 29 May 2024 circular. Catch it before you pay.
NCB on Porting — The Part Most Articles Get Half-Wrong
Two opposite claims float around on this. One: NCB transfers fully when you port, no questions asked. Two: NCB does not transfer at all, because it is a percentage tied to your old insurer's product. Both are wrong. The truth sits in the middle and depends on how the new insurer's product treats cumulative bonus.
The 2024 Master Circular gave policyholders a new right that most articles have not yet absorbed. At every renewal, you can choose whether your NCB shows up as a cumulative bonus (an addition to sum insured without extra premium) or a discount on the renewal premium. Earlier the insurer decided. Now the policyholder does. Most Indian retail health products in 2026 still default to cumulative bonus, typically a 5 to 50 percent increase in sum insured per claim-free year, capped at 50 to 100 percent of the base sum insured on most older products. New-generation products go higher — Niva Bupa Reassure 3.0 stacks bonus up to 300 percent over claim-free years, Care Supreme up to 150.
What actually happens when you port:
The rupee value of the cumulative bonus you have accumulated is treated as part of your existing sum insured for the purpose of carrying credit forward. So if you had ₹10 lakh base plus ₹5 lakh accumulated cumulative bonus, the new insurer treats your ₹15 lakh effective cover as the starting position for portability credit purposes.
The new insurer is required to offer you a sum insured at least equal to ₹10 lakh (your base) without fresh waiting periods. Whether they give you the full ₹15 lakh as base sum insured, or split it as ₹10 lakh base plus ₹5 lakh additional on a separate certificate, varies by insurer. Most accept the full transferred amount as base sum insured at the same waiting-period status.
Any amount you ask for above ₹15 lakh, say you want a ₹25 lakh policy, is a fresh increment. The ₹10 lakh increment carries fresh waiting periods on PED and specific illnesses, and a fresh moratorium clock starts on it. Only the original ₹15 lakh enjoys carried-forward credit.
The new insurer's NCB structure starts fresh. So if HDFC ERGO Optima Secure offers a 50 percent bonus on the first renewal and 100 percent on the second, that schedule starts from your new policy year one with them. You do not carry "a 50 percent NCB rate" forward; you carry the rupee value forward, and accumulate fresh under the new scheme.
One quirk worth flagging that you will not find on any insurer's portability brochure. A few insurers (Aditya Birla Health among them, in some plan variants) operate an internal underwriting rule: if the porting customer is below 45, the full NCB rupee value transfers; if above 45 with claims in the last two years, only 50 percent transfers. This is not an IRDAI rule. It is a board-approved underwriting practice that insurers are permitted to file. You will not find it in their portability brochure. You will find it in the underwriting feedback after they have quoted you. If you are over 45 and have claimed recently, ask the broker explicitly: will my full cumulative bonus value carry forward, or will it be reduced. Get the answer in writing before paying.
Waiting Periods, PED Credit, and the Moratorium Clock
Three different clocks tick simultaneously in any retail health policy in India. Porting affects each differently. This is the source of most reader confusion, so let me lay them out one by one.
| Clock | What It Is | 2026 IRDAI Cap | What Carries on Porting |
| Initial waiting period | 30 days from policy commencement; nothing covered except accidents | 30 days (cannot be longer) | Once served, served. The new policy starts day one for hospitalisation claims, subject to PED |
| PED waiting period | Wait for claims linked to declared pre-existing diseases | Maximum 36 months, down from 48 since 1 April 2024 | Months already served carry over. If old policy required 36 months and you served 28, only 8 remain |
| Specific-illness wait | Cataract, hernia, knee replacement, varicose veins, etc. | Maximum 36 months | Same — months served carry over |
| Moratorium | After 60 continuous months, no claim can be contested except for fraud or permanent exclusions | 60 months, down from 96 since 1 April 2024 | Months counted across both insurers. Five years total, irrespective of how many porting events |
So if Rajesh, our Bengaluru reader, has been with Star Health for 5 years (60 months exactly), his moratorium has just matured on his original ₹10 lakh sum insured. If he ports today to HDFC ERGO at the same ₹10 lakh, his moratorium continues — HDFC ERGO cannot reopen non-disclosure claims on that ₹10 lakh. But if he uses the port as an opportunity to upgrade to ₹20 lakh (Optima Secure base, which then doubles to ₹40 lakh under the 2x Secure Benefit), the additional ₹10 lakh is a fresh moratorium clock. For five more years, HDFC ERGO can contest claims on the incremental amount on grounds of non-disclosure. This is one reason I keep telling readers: if you are going to port, port for the same sum insured first. Upgrade after a year. Bundling the port and the upgrade together is a recipe for accidentally re-creating waiting periods on cover you thought was protected.
One sub-point about PED that confuses readers. Suppose you have hypertension, declared at policy purchase, and your old insurer applied a 36-month PED wait. You have served 24 months. You port. The new insurer's PED wait for hypertension is 36 months. You serve only 12 more months and stop, total 36, then covered. What if the new insurer's PED wait is 24 months? Then you serve nothing further; hypertension is covered from day one of the new policy. Conversely, and this happens, what if the new insurer's PED wait is 48 months? You cannot be made to serve more than 36 months total under the 2024 cap, so you serve 12 more and stop.
If you have a PED that is about to mature at your existing insurer, say diabetes covered after 33 months out of 36, that is the worst possible time to port. The new insurer might add new sub-limits, exclusions, or a higher co-pay specific to diabetes. You would be three months from full coverage; porting risks setting fire to that runway. Wait those three months out, let the PED mature, then port if you still want to.
Rajesh's Rupee Math — Star to HDFC ERGO and Niva Bupa, Side by Side
Numbers help. Here is what the porting decision looks like for Rajesh in May 2026, with current public premium charts and the 0 percent GST that has been in effect on individual policies since 22 September 2025. Treat these as illustrative; actual underwriting can vary by 10 to 15 percent in either direction.
| Item | Stay with Star (renewal) | Port to HDFC ERGO Optima Secure | Port to Niva Bupa Reassure 3.0 |
| Base sum insured | ₹10 lakh | ₹10 lakh (with 2x Secure Benefit = ₹20 lakh effective from day 1) | ₹10 lakh |
| Carried-forward NCB / cumulative bonus | ₹5 lakh (50%, accumulated) | Transferred as part of sum insured at the same waiting-period status; HDFC's own NCB schedule starts fresh | Transferred as part of sum insured; Niva Bupa's Booster+ continues stacking up to 300% over claim-free years |
| Effective cover from day 1 | ₹15 lakh | ~₹25 lakh (₹10 base + ₹10 secure benefit + ₹5 carried bonus, structure-dependent) | ₹15 lakh, then grows under unlimited restoration plus booster |
| Annual premium (3-member floater, Bengaluru) | ₹15,500 to ₹17,000 | ₹19,000 to ₹21,500 | ₹16,500 to ₹18,500 |
| GST (post 22 Sept 2025) | Nil | Nil | Nil |
| PED waiting period | Already served | 3 years; not relevant since no PEDs | 3 years; not relevant since no PEDs |
| Moratorium clock | 60 months complete on ₹10 lakh base | Carries forward on ₹10 lakh; fresh on ₹10 lakh secure benefit increment | Carries forward on ₹10 lakh; fresh on any sum insured increase |
| Room rent capping | None on Star Family Health Optima above ₹10 lakh SI | None on Optima Secure (any room) | None on Reassure 3.0 |
| Non-medical items / consumables | Excluded under standard plan | Covered (68 listed non-medical items under "Secure" benefit) | Covered, plan-dependent, under "Lock the Clock" add-on |
Three observations from this table that matter beyond Rajesh's specific case.
The premium difference between staying and porting is smaller than people imagine. Roughly ₹3,000 to ₹5,000 a year in this case. Not nothing, but not a "save big by porting" story either. The case for moving has to be a coverage case (the 2x secure benefit, no room-rent cap, non-medical items cover) or a service case (claim experience, network hospitals), not a premium case. People who port chasing a 5 percent premium reduction usually regret it within two renewal cycles.
The September 2025 GST going to zero has effectively given everyone an 18 percent premium cut, and that benefit is identical for ported and fresh policies. If Rajesh renewed his policy at 18 percent GST in August 2025 and then ported in May 2026, his new ported premium is GST-free. CBIC clarified this through Notification 16/2025-Central Tax (Rate) and the FAQ released on 16 September 2025: the exemption applies to the premium payment date, not the policy purchase date. Group policies still pay 18 percent GST, which is why moving from a group plan to retail at retirement now also gives an immediate tax-cost reduction in addition to the continuity benefit.
The table shows what carries, but it does not show what gets re-baselined. HDFC ERGO and Niva Bupa each have their own list of permanent exclusions, modern-treatment sub-limits, robotic-surgery limits (Niva Bupa caps robotic at ₹1 lakh per policy year on some variants; HDFC ERGO does not), and bariatric surgery rules. None of those resemble Star's. You do not carry the policy you knew forward; you carry credits forward into a different contract.
Group to Retail — This Is Migration, Not Portability
A common reader question: I am leaving my IT job in Pune and my Tata AIG group policy ends. Can I port to an individual policy and keep the four years of group cover I have had. The answer is yes, but the mechanism is technically migration, not portability. The distinction matters because the rules differ slightly.
Per the IRDAI Migration and Portability Guidelines of January 2020, still in force in 2026 alongside the 2024 Master Circular: portability is the move from one insurer to another (Insurer A retail to Insurer B retail). Migration is the move within the same insurer to a different product, or from a group plan to a retail plan with the same insurer.
If you are exiting a corporate group plan and want to keep continuity, the cleanest path is to migrate to an individual retail product with the same insurer first. So if your employer's group cover is with Tata AIG, you migrate to a Tata AIG MediCare or Medirise. The continuity of waiting periods is best preserved through this path because Tata AIG already has your data. After a year as an individual policyholder with Tata AIG, you can port out to HDFC ERGO, Niva Bupa, or whoever, if you find a better product.
Trying to leap directly from group employer cover to a different insurer's retail policy is permitted under IRDAI rules, but in practice insurers underwrite this proposal more conservatively. They do not have your full data, the employer's data quality is often patchy, and group cover usually has no individual underwriting at entry, so the new retail insurer treats you as a near-fresh proposal. You may keep some waiting period credit; you may not get the full continuity benefit.
Practical points for someone exiting employment:
Initiate the migration before your last working day, not after. Group cover usually ends on the day you leave, sometimes at month-end. Once it ends, you are in a coverage gap and continuity gets harder to argue. Premium will rise sharply because group rates are subsidised by the employer and pooled across hundreds or thousands of lives; a retail policy for the same ₹5 lakh cover for a 35-year-old typically costs two to three times what your share of group cost was. The retail insurer can underwrite — they can ask for medicals, decline to cover certain conditions, or load the premium. Group cover often includes maternity benefit from day one and waives PED waiting periods; retail policies do not, so you may have to serve fresh waiting periods on PEDs the group plan did not apply.
One personal observation. Five years ago I would have told readers to wait until they had a job offer with new group cover and just rely on that. In 2026, with retail policies offering far stronger restoration, no-room-rent-cap structures, and lifetime renewability, I think anyone over 35 should carry a retail policy in parallel with employer group cover from the start. It avoids the migration scramble entirely. It costs roughly ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 a year for a ₹10 lakh family floater at age 35, post-GST-exemption. That is cheap insurance against your employer changing insurers, you switching jobs, or you eventually retiring.
Five Situations Where Porting Is the Wrong Move
Porting is over-recommended in the consumer finance internet. Sometimes it is right. Often it is not. The Council for Insurance Ombudsmen Annual Report 2023-24 received 31,490 health insurance complaints, up 21.7 percent year on year. Star Health alone accounted for 13,308; CARE Health 3,718; Niva Bupa 2,511. The bulk, over 10,000 in Star's case, were claim repudiations. Reading the case summaries, the porting-related complaints fall into a small number of patterns.
The most frequent: a claim made within months of porting, declined for non-disclosure. Reader ports from Insurer A to Insurer B in May. In September, a hospitalisation for a condition the reader did not fully disclose. New insurer rejects. The case goes to the Ombudsman, who tends to side with the policyholder if the condition was visible in the IIB-shared old policy data — the new insurer had access to that data and chose to accept the proposal. The reasoning aligns with the NCDRC's June 2024 ruling that once an insurer issues a policy after the proposal stage, they cannot belatedly cite non-disclosure if the data was already available to them at underwriting.
The second most frequent: sub-limit shock. Reader did not realise the new policy had a 1 percent room-rent cap or a 30 percent co-pay on cataract. Hospitalisation goes through; claim settles partial. Reader complains. Ombudsman rejects on the basis that the CIS disclosed the sub-limit. Read the CIS, every page.
From these patterns and a few others, here are the five situations where porting is genuinely a bad idea.
One. You have an unresolved or recent claim. File the claim, settle it, wait six months, then consider porting. Porting in the middle of an open claim is a recipe for both insurers pointing at the other and you in the middle.
Two. You are within months of a PED maturing. If your diabetes wait expires in three months on the existing policy, do not port for any reason short of total claim breakdown. Wait. Mature. Then port if you must.
Three. You are over 60 and have any chronic condition. Underwriting hardens dramatically after 60. Star Health, Care, and Manipal Cigna will accept seniors but with co-pays of 20 to 30 percent and stricter sub-limits. The Ombudsman case books on senior portability rejections are too consistent to ignore.
Four. Your existing insurer has just hit your moratorium milestone. If you have completed 60 months on your base sum insured, you have earned non-contestability. Restarting that clock by porting (especially with any sum insured upgrade bundled in) means giving up a hard-won protection. Particularly painful for older policyholders.
Five. You are switching only to save 5 to 10 percent on premium. The headline premium difference is rarely the real cost. Different sub-limits, network hospital changes, cashless behaviour differences — these can cost ten times the premium difference at one hospitalisation.
And the reverse, where porting is genuinely a good idea: when the existing insurer's claim settlement experience is consistently poor (check IRDAI's NL-37 disclosure on each insurer's claim ratio and complaints per 10,000 policies); when network hospitals near your home have dropped your insurer (Star Health and Apollo had a public dispute in 2024 that affected several Apollo hospitals); when a new product genuinely offers a structural feature you cannot get with your current insurer (room-rent waiver, modern-treatment cover, restore benefit); when your existing insurer has been issued show-cause notices by IRDAI for systemic problems.
If the New Insurer Rejects or Stalls — Bima Bharosa and Beyond
Two scenarios. The new insurer formally rejects your portability application within the 15-day window. Or they do not respond at all.
If they reject: under the 2024 framework, the rejection must come with reasons. They cannot say "underwriting" without specifying — they have to indicate whether it is age-related, claim-history-related, or condition-specific. Ask for the rejection letter in writing. If the reason cited is something the IIB data would not reveal (i.e., they are claiming non-disclosure on something they could have seen), you have a basis to escalate. If the reason is genuine, a recently diagnosed cardiac condition for example, your recourse is limited. The right to apply does not translate to a right to be accepted.
If they go silent: under Clause 9 of the 2020 portability guidelines, preserved in the 2024 framework, "if on receipt of complete information and data within the above time frame, the insurance company does not communicate its decision to the requesting policyholder within 15 days then the insurance company shall not retain the right to reject such proposal and shall have to accept the proposal." This is a powerful provision. Most policyholders never invoke it because they do not know it exists. If your 15 days are up and there is no decision, write to the new insurer's grievance officer citing this clause. Then, if no response within 15 days of that, escalate to Bima Bharosa at bimabharosa.irdai.gov.in, IRDAI's grievance portal that replaced the older IGMS system. It is free, takes about 10 minutes to file, and IRDAI does monitor turnaround.
What to put in the Bima Bharosa complaint: policy details (existing policy number, name of existing insurer, name of acquiring insurer); date of portability application; date of complete documents submission; date of new insurer's data request to the old insurer; specific reference to Clause 9 of the IRDAI portability guidelines on deemed acceptance after 15 days of silence; your renewal date and the imminent risk of policy lapse; and a clear request for either deemed acceptance and policy issuance, or written reasons for delay.
For wider grievance handling, IRDAI raised the Insurance Ombudsman's compensation cap from ₹30 lakh to ₹50 lakh in November 2023, which means most health insurance disputes can be heard there. The Ombudsman has 17 offices across India and resolved 49,705 complaints in 2023-24, about 87 percent within 90 days. If Bima Bharosa does not yield, the Ombudsman is the next step. Beyond that, the consumer commissions. The companion piece on how to file a complaint against an insurance company in India walks through the full escalation process from insurer's grievance cell through to consumer commission.
One small detail that matters in the gap. While the port is in process and the renewal date is approaching, write to your existing insurer asking for a one-month pro-rata extension. They cannot deny this if you certify that a portability proposal is pending. This is in Clause 3.3.1 of the 2020 guidelines. Most insurers have stopped pushing back on it, but you have to ask in writing. They do not volunteer it.
And if you need a refresher on what your policy actually says before any of this, the companion pieces on how to read a health insurance policy document end to end and on how the 30-day, PED, and specific-illness waiting periods interact are both worth a slow read before you initiate any port.
Rajesh, the Whitefield reader I started with, eventually decided to port to Niva Bupa Reassure 3.0 in March 2026. He stuck to the same ₹10 lakh base sum insured. He did not upgrade at the porting stage. He added a super top-up separately a month later, with its own fresh waiting period, cheaper for the additional cover than upgrading the base. His five years of moratorium on the base ₹10 lakh stayed intact. The Niva Bupa underwriting accepted his proposal at standard rates (he is 42, no PEDs, no claims of his own). The whole process took 23 days from application date. He paid ₹16,800 for the new policy, about ₹1,300 more than Star's renewal quote, but the absence of GST since September 2025 meant the rupee outflow was almost identical to what he had been paying with 18 percent GST a year earlier. Six weeks after the new policy started, his daughter ran a 103-degree fever and got admitted at a Bengaluru network hospital. The cashless went through in two and a half hours. He sent me a one-line email after she was discharged: "First time the system actually worked the way the brochure said it would." That is all most of us are asking for.
Sources and References
▸ IRDAI Master Circular on Health Insurance Business — Ref. IRDAI/HLT/CIR/PRO/84/5/2024 dated 29 May 2024
▸ IRDAI (Insurance Products) Regulations, 2024 — notified 20 March 2024, effective 1 April 2024
▸ IRDAI Master Circular on Protection of Policyholders' Interests — Ref. IRDAI/PP&GR/CIR/MISC/117/9/2024 dated 5 September 2024
▸ IRDAI Guidelines on Migration and Portability of Health Insurance Policies — Ref. IRDAI/HLT/REG/CIR/003/01/2020 and 002/01/2020
▸ Insurance Act, 1938 — Section 64VB on premium receipt and risk assumption
▸ CBIC Notification No. 16/2025-Central Tax (Rate) dated 17 September 2025, effective 22 September 2025
▸ CBIC FAQ on insurance GST exemption dated 16 September 2025; Department of Financial Services clarifications
▸ GST Council 56th Meeting Recommendations dated 3 September 2025 on individual life and health insurance exemption
▸ Insurance Information Bureau of India Health Portability portal — hi.portability.iib.gov.in
▸ IRDAI Policyholder portal portability page — policyholder.gov.in/portability-of-health-insurance
▸ Bima Bharosa Grievance Portal — bimabharosa.irdai.gov.in
▸ Council for Insurance Ombudsmen Annual Report 2023-24 — cioins.co.in/annualreports
▸ Insurance Ombudsman Rules, 2017 (compensation cap raised to ₹50 lakh by amendment dated 10 November 2023)
▸ NCDRC ruling on Care Health Insurance non-disclosure case, June 2024
▸ IRDAI public disclosures NL-37, NL-39, NL-45 (Q4 FY 2024-25) for claim ratios and complaints per 10,000 policies
▸ HDFC ERGO Optima Secure prospectus and brochure (2026) at hdfcergo.com
▸ Niva Bupa Reassure 3.0 product literature at nivabupa.com
▸ Star Health Family Health Optima policy wording at starhealth.in
▸ Care Supreme product brochure at careinsurance.com
▸ Aditya Birla Health Insurance product information at adityabirlacapital.com
▸ Ditto Insurance independent guides on portability and PED waiting periods at joinditto.in
▸ Beshak independent insurance research on health insurance portability at beshak.org
Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute insurance advice, financial advice, or a recommendation to buy any specific product. Premium ranges, sum insured figures, NCB amounts, and insurer-specific positions are illustrative and based on publicly available product brochures, IRDAI circulars, and broker case data as of April-May 2026. Actual quotes, underwriting decisions and claim experiences vary by individual medical profile, the insurer's then-current underwriting policy, and the date of application. Rajesh, the Whitefield reader, is a real reader; his name and identifying details have been changed at his request. Finance Guided is not a SEBI-registered investment advisor, IRDAI-licensed insurance broker, AMFI-registered mutual fund distributor, or Chartered Accountant, and does not earn commission or referral fee from any insurance company named in this article. Always read the policy wording and the Customer Information Sheet carefully, obtain personalised quotes directly from licensed insurers or fee-based advisors, and verify all product features, exclusions, and current premium quotations before making any porting or renewal decision.
Dinesh Kumar S
Founder & Author — Finance Guided
B.Sc. Mathematics | M.Sc. Information Technology | Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Dinesh started Finance Guided because most insurance, tax and personal finance content in India is written for professionals, not for the salaried families and young IT workers who actually have to make the decisions. He writes research-based guides verified against IRDAI, SEBI, RBI, EPFO and Income Tax Department sources. No product sales. No commissions. No paid placements.
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