Changing Jobs? Keep Your Health Cover and Waiting-Period Credit

Reviewed on: 2026-06-12.

Your group health policy ends when your employment ends. The new one starts only after you join and HR adds you. Use this quick decision flow before you resign.

• If you have served part of a waiting period or have a pre-existing disease, port your group cover to a retail policy. Under IRDAI portability rules you carry forward the credit for waiting periods already served. Apply before the old cover lapses.
• If you are healthy and the gap is short, buy a fresh bridge retail policy before your last working day. A fresh policy starts waiting periods from zero, so this suits only people with nothing to protect.
• If your parents or spouse were dependants on the company floater, arrange separate cover for them now. Their cover ends on your exit date, not on theirs.
• If you are mid-treatment or already admitted, do not resign until cover is secured. A hospitalisation inside the cover gap may be paid by neither policy.

This guide is prevention, set up before the cease date. RTI does not help, because private insurers are not public authorities.

Write down three dates and line them up.

1. Last working day. Most group policies stop cover on this date. Some keep you on until month-end. Confirm in writing.
2. New joining date. When you start at the next employer.
3. New enrolment date. When the new employer actually adds you and your family to its group policy. This is the date people miss. Enrolment can take days or weeks after you join.

Any period where neither policy is in force is your cover gap. A claim in that window is the real risk. Map the gap separately for each family member, because dependants may have a different gap.

Portability lets you move from a group policy to your own retail (individual) policy and keep the waiting-period credit you have built. If you served 30 months of a 36-month pre-existing-disease waiting period under the group cover, a properly ported policy can recognise that, so you wait far less. A brand-new policy bought without porting restarts that clock at zero.

To port, ask the retail insurer for the portability proposal form and document list. Apply well ahead of your cease date, typically a few weeks, so the insurer can process it before the old cover ends. The exact window is set by IRDAI rules and the insurer's process, so confirm the current timeline directly. Declare every pre-existing disease and past treatment honestly on the new form. Group cover rarely asked for medical history, so this step is easy to skip, and skipping it is the leading cause of a later rejection.

• Current group policy document and e-card, showing sum insured, dependants and waiting periods.
• HR email confirming the exact cover cease date and whether dependants are covered until then.
• Relieving letter or last-working-day proof.
• New joining letter and the written enrolment confirmation with its start date.
• Portability proposal form and acknowledgement, or the bridge policy document.
• Your saved copy of the completed proposal form with all PED declarations.
• Premium receipts proving cover was in force on the relevant dates.

Meena worked at a Pune software firm and was covered under a corporate floater of Rs 5 lakh with her husband and her mother as dependants. Her mother had diabetes declared at enrolment, and Meena had served 28 months of the 36-month pre-existing-disease waiting period. She accepted a new job in Hyderabad. Her HR confirmed in writing that group cover would cease on her last working day, 31 March 2026, and that dependants ended the same day. Her new employer said enrolment usually took about three weeks after joining on 7 April.

Meena saw a four-week gap. In early March she applied to port the floater to a retail policy with the same retail insurer's individual plan, attaching the group e-card and her mother's diabetes records. The retail policy started on 1 April, carrying forward her 28 months of credit, so only 8 months of the PED wait remained instead of a fresh 36. Her mother stayed covered through the gap. When the new group cover began on 30 April, Meena kept the retail policy too, as a personal backup. Total out-of-pocket: one quarter of retail premium. The case turned on applying before 31 March, not after.

• Assuming you are covered after your last day because someone said so on a call. Get the cease date in writing.
• Treating the joining date as the cover start date. Cover starts at enrolment, which is later.
• Buying a fresh policy when you should have ported, and losing your waiting-period credit.
• Letting a parent's or spouse's cover lapse silently when the new policy will not include them.
• Forgetting to declare a pre-existing disease on the retail form because the group form never asked.
• Ignoring a different room-rent cap or co-pay on the new policy, which can cut a future claim.

Generally no. A private employer, a private insurer and a private TPA are not public authorities, so RTI has no force against them. The narrow exception is a government or PSU employer, where you may use RTI to ask for the group policy records and the cover dates it notified to the insurer. Even a public-sector insurer handles your portability as a commercial matter, so the faster route is its grievance cell and the Bima Bharosa portal, not RTI. See how to file RTI online and first appeals if a government employer's PIO does not reply.

If an insurer refuses to honour the portability credit you applied for, raise it with the insurer's grievance officer first, then escalate to the IRDAI Bima Bharosa portal, and then to the Insurance Ombudsman for your region. The Ombudsman is free and decides disputes within a prescribed value ceiling, with a limitation period to keep in mind, so do not sit on a final rejection.

You pay the premium of the new retail policy you move into, the same as any individual policy of that sum insured and age. Porting itself is not a separate charge. What you save is the waiting-period credit, which can be worth far more than the premium difference.

Buy a separate retail or senior-citizen policy for your parents before the group floater ceases. If they were declared with a condition under the group cover and have served waiting time, ask the insurer whether that history can be ported to a fresh senior plan.

Portability needs the old cover to be in force when you apply, so once it has lapsed the credit is usually lost. You can still buy a fresh retail policy, but waiting periods will start from zero. This is why the application must go in before the cease date.

Group personal accident and group top-up covers also usually end on exit. Top-ups can sometimes be ported under the same IRDAI rules. Confirm with the insurer, and do not assume a top-up survives your job change on its own.

You can port and choose a sum insured on the new policy. If you increase the sum insured, the enhanced portion may carry its own fresh waiting period while the original level keeps the ported credit. Ask the insurer to confirm this split in writing.

The insurer may ask for a medical check or more health details, especially at older ages or higher sums insured. Cooperate and declare honestly. A pre-policy check that the insurer arranges can later help you, because it weakens any future non-disclosure claim.

• Corporate OPD or diagnostic reimbursement stuck with the TPA
• Diagnostic bills rejected by the insurer
• Critical illness claim rejected for non-disclosure
• All practical guides
• How to file RTI online

Download the job-change health cover continuity checklist (PDF).