Part One: Mr. Kartar Singh and the 46-Day Countdown of Doom
Mr. Kartar Singh — 52 years old, proud owner of a paunch, a Fortuner, and an ego that could not tolerate being told “no” by a call centre executive — had a policy with National Bharosa Insurance for eleven years. Eleven years of premiums paid on time. Eleven years of a waiting period clock quietly ticking down for his diabetes, his knee, and that one hernia surgery he kept threatening to get done “next year.”
Then one fine Tuesday, his cousin’s brother-in-law’s colleague — a man Kartar Singh had met exactly twice, both times at weddings, both times drunk on Old Monk — told him, “Arre, switch to Suraksha Plus, unlimited restoration hai, bahut sasta hai.”
Kartar Singh, a man who researched car mileage for three months before buying a scooter, decided this was sufficient due diligence for a health insurance decision. He called Suraksha Plus. He said the magic words: “Mujhe port karna hai.”
Here is where the tragedy begins.
Under IRDAI rules, a portability request must be submitted to the new insurer at least 45 days before the policy renewal date. Not 45 days after. Not “jab yaad aaya.” Forty-five days before. Kartar Singh’s policy was renewing on the 15th of the month. He remembered to call Suraksha Plus on the 12th.
Three days.
The Suraksha Plus call centre executive — a patient young woman named Priya who had clearly dealt with seventeen Kartar Singhs that week alone — explained gently that the portability form (Form IRDAI/HLT/REG/CIR/193/09/2020, “Proposal cum Portability form,” to be exact) requires processing time, medical history verification from the previous insurer, and underwriting approval. None of this happens in three days. This isn’t a food delivery app.
“But I have been loyal for eleven years!” thundered Kartar Singh, as if loyalty alone could bend IRDAI timelines.
“Sir, loyalty is wonderful. Paperwork is faster.”
So what happened? His old policy lapsed because he’d already decided — mentally, spiritually, in his heart — that he was “leaving” National Bharosa, and stopped paying the renewal premium in protest. The portability to Suraksha Plus didn’t go through in time either, because underwriting flagged his file (diabetes + knee + “pending hernia, patient states next year”) and asked for additional medical tests, which Kartar Singh ignored for six weeks because he was busy with a wedding in Jaipur.
Result: no active policy. Anywhere. For 71 days.
On day 52 of this self-inflicted insurance vanvaas, Kartar Singh slipped on his own bathroom floor — the universe has a sense of humor — and fractured his wrist. Cost: Rs. 38,000 for surgery and a cast. Fully out of pocket. Cash. From his own account. The same man who had spent eleven years paying premiums specifically to avoid this exact scenario.
When he finally did get a new policy three months later — a fresh one, not even ported, because by then even the diabetes and knee waiting periods had reset to zero — his premium was 40% higher due to age-band changes, and every single pre-existing condition needed a fresh 2-4 year waiting period. Eleven years of accumulated continuity benefit, gone. Vanished. As if he’d never held a policy in his life.
His cousin’s brother-in-law’s colleague, incidentally, was unreachable for comment. He had switched his phone number. And possibly his insurer. Nobody knows.
Part Two: Mrs. Radhika Mehra and the Portability Executed Like a Military Operation
Now meet Mrs. Radhika Mehra, 47, a school administrator in Lucknow, a woman who once made her entire extended family follow a laminated seating chart at a wedding. Precision was her love language.
Radhika had a family floater policy with a mid-sized insurer for eight years. Good policy, decent claims history, but the room rent capping was starting to annoy her, and a colleague’s recent hospitalization bill had shown her exactly how painful a 2% room-rent sub-limit could be in a Tier-1 city hospital.
She didn’t call anyone’s brother-in-law. She opened a spreadsheet.
150 days before renewal: She began comparing insurers — not on premium alone, but on claim settlement ratio, incurred claim ratio, network hospital list in her actual pin code, and whether room-rent capping existed at all in the new policy.
90 days before renewal: She shortlisted three insurers and called each of their portability desks directly, asking specifically: “What is your average portability processing time, and what documents will you need from my current insurer?”
60 days before renewal: She wrote a formal request to her current insurer for her policy’s claim history statement — a document most people don’t even know they’re entitled to, but which IRDAI mandates the existing insurer must provide within specified timeframes when a portability request is initiated.
47 days before renewal: She submitted Form IRDAI/HLT/REG/CIR/193/09/2020 to the new insurer — two full days ahead of the mandatory 45-day window, because Radhika Mehra does not do anything at the deadline. Deadlines are for other people.
Day 30: The new insurer’s underwriting team requested her past claim documents, which she had already photographed, labelled, and stored in a folder titled “Portability_2026” — because of course she had.
Day 15: Approval came through. The new policy would take over with full continuity benefit — every year of her waiting periods already served would count. No fresh 2-4 year wait for her mild thyroid condition. No reset clock.
Day 1 (renewal date): Old policy ended. New policy began. Zero gap. Zero drama. Zero bathroom-floor fractures paid out of pocket.
Four months later, her husband needed a minor day-care procedure. The claim was cashless, processed in under six hours, at a hospital that was, in fact, on the new insurer’s network list — something she’d verified back in month one, before she’d signed anything.
When her sister-in-law asked her how she managed it all so smoothly, Radhika simply said, “I read the policy wording document. All of it. Even the annexures.”
Her sister-in-law looked at her the way one looks at a person who claims to enjoy filing income tax returns.
The Moral, Delivered Without Mercy
Health insurance portability is not romance. There is no “dil se decision” here. It is a regulated, timeline-bound, document-heavy process, and IRDAI built the 45-day rule precisely because it knows human beings will otherwise decide to switch insurers with the same urgency and planning they bring to buying vegetables — at the last possible moment, from whoever is standing closest.
Kartar Singh lost eleven years of continuity for the sake of three impatient days. Radhika Mehra kept eight years of continuity by starting five months early and treating a portability form with the same seriousness most people reserve for a passport renewal.
The insurance company doesn’t care about your loyalty story. It cares about Form 193 being submitted on time, your medical disclosures being accurate, and your existing insurer’s claim history reaching the new insurer’s desk before the clock runs out.
So — if portability is on your mind, don’t be Kartar Singh, calling three days before renewal with the confidence of a man who has never once read a policy document. Be Radhika Mehra: early, boring, laminated-seating-chart organized, and fully protected the day it actually matters.
Fee Based Consultation exists for exactly this reason — to make sure your next portability story reads like Radhika’s, not Kartar Singh’s.
