HomeNewsPodcastSimply Save | Renewal of Corona Kavach policies a must in current times

Simply Save | Renewal of Corona Kavach policies a must in current times

What steps can you take if your Corona Kavach and Corona Rakshak policy's renewal is stalled? Preeti Kulkarni speaks to Mahavir Chopra, Founder, Beshak.org, a consumer research platform for insurance buyers for answers in this edition of Simply Save.

May 25, 2021 / 17:59 IST
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COVID-specific Corona Kavach and Corona Rakshak policies have attracted a lot of attention of late, with some policyholders complaining about insurers’ reluctance to facilitate renewals.

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These policies were designed as short-term plans, with a maximum tenure of 9.5 months, or up to March 31, 2021. However, in March 2021, insurance regulator permitted insurers to renew these policies up to September 30, 2021, to ensure that the protection continues through the second wave of the pandemic too.

Yet, renewing these policies has not been easy for many. Now, the insurance regulator has stepped in to reiterate that selling and renewing Corona Kavach was mandatory. So, what steps can you take if your renewal is stalled?

COVID-19 Vaccine
Frequently Asked Questions

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How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.
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