Bangalore: Did you know you did not have to wait for the time periods to receive those benefits from your insurance plan? You can now port your insurance policies; meaning continue the same type of policy, or convert you existing one into a better one. Portability in insurance policies allows customers to move out and opt for a similar plan with other insurance plan. The health insurance portability facility came into force from the 1st of October; all individual health insurance policies issued by non-life companies are allowed . Here the customer is allowed to change to a different health insurer and simultaneously get benefited from his previous insurer. Portability arises competition among other insurers to convince and influence their customers by increasing their efficiency and service, and is hence supposed to bring in innovations into the insurance sector. Though it has its own benefits, there are a few things to be taken into account before you chose this option. Here are the 5 main things to be considered while porting insurance policies - * Why Porting - Porting allows to you to continue your life insurance policy and you also receive the premium as promised. Other features that your previous policy included, may or may not continue but depending on the terms of the policy, you can increase or decrease the face amount of the policy. * Check the insurance policies - Before you decide on porting your policy, look into all the details and then decide. Check if the insurance policy offers future premiums if you claim one in the current year. Find out on details like co-payments, room rent limits etc. * Compare and decide - After having collected sufficient information on all the interested policies, compare them with the rest and decide on the one that suits you. Look into the benefits the policy offers and various other constraints and then approach the insurer. * Regular Features - Your health insurance policy should cover both hospitalization and day-care procedures and without any sub-limits. Go into details of all policies and chose the one that provides all these benefits. Not two policies are the same; all of them are different from each other and are governed by their underwriting principles. Make the best choice accordingly . * Wish list - The whole reason of you changing your policy is because you found another that met your needs. There a few features that few policies provide that fulfill the customer's wish list and hence customers chose porting their policy. For example - -- Age limit for renewal : Most of the policies have an age limit for renewal. Do not go for policies which have a cut-off age; choose a life-long renewal option. Checking the age limit is important for health insurance coverage as health complications increase through time. -- Coverage without restriction : Apart from life-long renewal, also check if your current policy offers you an increase in coverage with progressing age? The new policy you choose should allow you this feature of increasing the cover without any restriction. -- Cashless or reimbursement: You would prefer a cashless policy that would ease out on the mode of payment. It is at tedious job to pay first and then submit bills.