The message usually comes in the evening. A photo of a renewal notice. One line below it.

“Can you move this to a better company?”

Sometimes they want a bigger cover. Sometimes they have read about a plan that looks better than theirs. Often the reason is simpler. The person who sold them the policy has stopped picking up the phone.

We usually tell them to stay.

Let us say the money part openly. Moving your policy is not just paperwork for us. It is a new policy. New business. We earn when you move.

We still say no. This post is why.

What is my old policy actually giving me?

An old health policy holds three things you cannot buy. None of them are printed on the brochure. All of them took years.

One. The two-year wait. Most plans make you wait about two years before they will pay for things like a kidney stone, a knee replacement, a hernia, appendix or cataract. If your policy is old, that wait is already over.

Two. The wait for what you already had. Diabetes, blood pressure, thyroid. Anything you had before you bought the policy. Two or three years, depending on the plan. If your policy is old, that is finished too.

Three. The five-year rule. This one matters most, and most people have never heard of it. Once your policy has run five years without a break, the company can no longer reject a claim by saying you hid something about your health. Only proven fraud is left. After five years, your old health history stops being a question.

Porting was made to protect these years. When you move to a new company, the years you have already completed are supposed to move with you.

But those years come with me. So what is the problem?

They do. We want to say this clearly, because it would be easy to hide.

The five-year rule moves with you. So do the waiting periods you have finished. If you have done four years with your old company and you move today, you owe the new company one year. Then you are through.

So the protection does travel. That part is true.

The real question is different. What does that protection actually do on the day you need it?

The rule does not stop a “no”

Here is the part most people miss.

These rules do not stop a company from rejecting your claim. They only give you something to argue with, after the claim has already been rejected.

And arguing takes time. First you write to the company’s grievance cell. If they say no again, or do not reply within thirty days, you can go to the insurance ombudsman. The ombudsman tries to finish in about three months. It is a fair system and it does its job.

But the hospital wants the money today.

Say your claim is ₹40,000. Nobody fights for four months over ₹40,000. You pay it and you move on. The protection you carried over never gets used, because fighting costs more than the claim.

Now say the claim is big. You are paying and fighting at the same time, while someone in your family is in a hospital bed.

That is what the porting conversation leaves out. Your old years give you a case. They do not give you cash.

Has this gone wrong for a client of yours?

Yes. And we moved that policy ourselves. So this one is ours.

We asked him for his full medical history. He told us everything he could remember. The port went through.

He had forgotten one thing. Four or five years earlier he had gone to a heart surgeon, once. Nothing came of it. No illness was found. He did not think it was worth mentioning. Most people would not.

When a claim came, the new company went through his old records and found that visit. They called it non-disclosure. The claim was rejected and the policy was cancelled.

We do not blame him. Something that had no result leaves no memory. But one visit that led to nothing can still be called non-disclosure. And it was.

This is why we say no to porting after the age of fifty. Not because people lie. Because anyone who has lived fifty years has seen doctors, and a new company is allowed to go looking.

Why is the ported price higher than the normal price?

Because you arrive with your waiting periods already finished. The new company may have to pay a claim quickly, without collecting two or three years of premium first.

Companies do not want these cases. So the cost comes back in another form. Add-ons you did not ask for. A cover bigger than the one you wanted. And it does not come once. It comes every year, for as long as you hold the policy.

Here are some numbers, only to show you the shape of it.

And the bigger cover is not a gift. It is the catch.

Your five-year clock moves with you only up to your old cover amount. On the extra amount, a fresh five-year clock starts. And a company is allowed to check your health history again only when the cover goes up. So the bigger cover you are being sold is the exact reason they get to look at your history again.

A hospital bill does not arrive marked “this part is the old cover.” It arrives as one bill, with one question about your health.

So what should I do?

Find your row first. Then decide.

What do you do with your own policies?

Some families on our own team still run policies that are twenty years old. Small cover. Old rules. Limits that any new plan would beat easily.

They renew them every year, without fail.

Not because the policy is good. Because the years are good. Twenty years of unbroken cover cannot be bought from any company, at any price.

So here is the one thing to do.

Renew your oldest policy this year, before you decide anything else. If the cover is too small, add above it. If the terms are old, add beside it. Do not replace it.