Thiruvananthapuram, November 27:
Bank
pensioners and retirees have expressed fears over the fate of a medical
insurance scheme introduced as part of the 10th bipartite settlement.
The
stance of United India Insurance, which is implementing the scheme, has
caused a lot of anguish, says the All-India Bank Pensioners’ and
Retirees’ Confederation.
SR
Sengupta, General Secretary of the Confederation, has written to the
Chairman of Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) demanding that retirees be
granted identical insurance benefits as regular employees “as agreed by
the bipartite settlement”.
Advisory to banks
The
insurance company has, in its advisory to banks on November 13, gone
back on the terms of the policy already agreed upon and to which premium
has already been paid by the respective banks, Sengupta said.
But
United India Insurance has vehemently contested this. It is not as if a
cover already granted is being taken off, top sources in the company
told BusinessLine .
The controversy is borne out of inadequate understanding of the policies that apply separately to employees and retired persons.
Different footing
These
policies have been devised on a footing different from each other. For
instance, employees join as a group and the banks pay the premium.
In the case of retired persons, it is optional for banks to do this.
Some
of them probably provide a subsidy to the insured but others don’t.
Mostly, the retirees are on their own, and are required to pay the
premium individually.
The two covers cannot be compared since they have been different from day one.
And
this had been conveyed to the banks and the unions separately. The
issue here is that the retirees want the same policy as the regular
employees, sources said. Sengupta agreed saying banks could decide on
sharing/bearing the premium payable for retirees.
IBA agreements
But
the Department of Financial Services wants banks to bear the entire
premium for both serving and retired employees, he claimed.
He
also said that the company had in presentations made at different
centres explained the highlights of the policy for retirees.
These
included coverage of pre-existing diseases; no entry age bar; cover for
critical illnesses; domiciliary treatment on submission of medical
prescription every 90 days; coverage for treatment under all systems of
medicines.
The
IBA had separately entered into agreements with employees’ unions and
officers’ organisations to the effect that an insurance cover similar to
that of serving employees would be extended to the retirees as well,
Sengupta said.
(This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated November 28, 2015
Regards,
E.R.Iyer
