hyderabad call it a case of once bitten twice shy but having borne the brunt of exorbitant medical bills during the second wave of the pandemic policyholders are now porting their covers for higher sum insured siamit chhabra headhealth insurance policybazaarcom pointed out that at any given point of time the online insurance aggregator has around 78 of its existing policyholders availing porting options but this number has shot up to over 20 in may and june of 2021 as per data shared by policybazaar between marchmay 2021 80 of the customers who opted for porting have ported to higher health cover as compared to 30 during marchmay 2020policybazaar accounts for over 10 of indias retail health business it accounts for roughly half of all internetbased insurance purchases in the countrygurdeep singh batra head retail underwriting bajaj allianz general insurance said that the enquiries for porting are higher as compared to precovid as well as the first wave periodbatra said people are looking at health covers that have no room rent capping as many policyholders faced challenges during the pandemics peak because bed charges levied by hospitals were much higher than their eligibility on account of room rent capping in their policy besides post covid there is also a rise in enquiries for critical health covers he addedmeanwhile priya deshmukh gilbile coo manipalcigna health insurance pointed out that the insurer witnessed an increase in portability cases by over 30 also people are thinking proactively around what insurance plans can futureproof for them considering that life expectancy has gone up which might give rise to new risks beyond the existing ones she saidapart from revising the sum insured upwards in their new health policies people are also looking for policies that cover consumables chhabra pointed out he explained that consumable items like gloves masks ppe kits and sanitisers among others in precovid times would constitute only 23 of medical bills and were not paid by health insurers but during the pandemic it shot up to nearly 20 besides many are also porting to policies that ensure home care coverage