What Is a Tele-Medical Examination in Term Insurance?

What is a Term Insurance Telemedical Examination? A Term Insurance Telemedical Examination is a remote medical assessment conducted over a phone or video call by a qualified medical professional on behalf of the insurer. Instead of visiting a diagnostic centre for a physical check-up, the applicant answers questions about their medical history, lifestyle habits, family health background, and current medications. This process helps insurers evaluate the applicant’s health risk profile and decide on policy approval, premium loadings, or the need for additional medical tests, making the overall process faster, more convenient, and hassle-free.

Not too long ago, buying term insurance meant waiting days for medical tests and visiting diagnostic centres. Today, you can complete the process in under 30 minutes, right from home.

At Ditto, our advisors speak to thousands of professionals every month about term insurance. A large share of them opt for telemedical checkups because they make the process smoother, faster, and more convenient. We’ve guided clients across age groups and even NRIs through this process, so we know the practical benefits and limitations.

By the end, you’ll understand exactly how telemedical checkups work, why insurers rely on them, and whether they’re the right choice for you.

Friendly reminder: It’s easy to get lost comparing policies and premiums. Instead of spending hours on it, why not get personalised insurance advice from Ditto? We offer free consultations with zero spam! Just 30 minutes to clarify all your doubts. So book a call now.

What Is a Telemedical Checkup for Term Insurance?

A telemedical checkup often called Tele-MER or Video-MER is a remote health assessment conducted over a phone or video call instead of an in-person medical exam. It supplements the underwriting process but does not replace laboratory tests, ECGs, or other diagnostics.

Usually, a licensed medical professional asks about your:

• Medical history refers to details about your past illnesses, surgeries, and hospitalisations.
• Lifestyle habits include information about smoking, alcohol consumption, diet, and exercise routines.
• Family health history highlights hereditary conditions such as diabetes or heart disease.
• Current medications cover any ongoing treatments or prescriptions you are taking.

Some insurers may also request you to share recent health check-up reports (like blood sugar or cholesterol results). If no major risks show up, your policy can be approved without further tests. But it is always best to be prepared with all relevant information just in case.

As part of this process, the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines (2020) in India ensure that all virtual doctor–patient interactions follow proper identity verification, consent, documentation, and platform safety standards.

How to Prepare for a Telemedical Examination?

A telemedical examination is not an exam you can “pass” or “fail.” Instead, it’s a fact-finding conversation. Disclaimers are also provided, clarifying that the interaction is solely for collecting information for underwriting and not for diagnosis or treatment, as required under telemedicine norms.

Here are a few tips to get ready:

1. Gather Your Medical Information: Before your telemedical examination, it’s helpful to have all relevant medical information ready. This includes a list of your current medications and their dosages, records of recent medical check-ups or hospitalisations, details of any surgeries or major illnesses you’ve had.
   
   It also spans your family health history such as whether parents or siblings have conditions like diabetes, cancer, or cardiovascular disease. Having these details on hand ensures the call goes smoothly and your information is accurately recorded.
2. Ensure a Quiet Environment: The interview can last anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes. Choose a calm, distraction-free place where you can focus and provide accurate answers.
3. Stay Hydrated and Calm: Sometimes, people get nervous when asked about medical history, fearing it might affect their policy approval. But remember, honesty is always better. Insurers value transparency, and non-disclosure could lead to claim rejection later.
4. Keep Identification Handy: You may be asked to confirm details like application number, date of birth, or Aadhaar/PAN card during the call. Keep these documents nearby.

Step-by-Step Process of the Telemedical Examination

Here’s a typical flow for how the examination (as per our advisors and operations team’s experience) works:

1. Scheduling: The insurer arranges a call with a medical examiner at a convenient time, either over the phone or through a video call. Some insurers let you choose a slot during the application journey itself, while others confirm the timing later over a phone call. They also send you a prep SMS or email with instructions on what to keep handy, such as past medical reports, details of medications, or ID proof.
2. Identity verification: The examiner begins by confirming your details, such as name, age, and policy application number. In line with KYC requirements, insurers may also capture your full name, date of birth, and address. For video-based interactions, Video-Based Identification Process (VBIP) is permitted, which can involve showing your ID to the camera, liveness checks, and a location declaration. In all cases, explicit informed consent must be recorded before proceeding.
3. Medical questionnaire: You are asked questions about your past illnesses, surgeries, hospitalisations, and current medications. In the case of a video call, the doctor may also observe your general appearance, posture, or breathing.
4. Family history and lifestyle: The examiner asks about your family’s medical history, such as hereditary conditions, and your lifestyle habits, including smoking, drinking, diet, and exercise.
   
   When the interview is conducted over video, they may additionally record objective observations, such as your general appearance (distress, breathlessness during conversation, pallor, cyanosis, jaundice), speech, tremors, visible edema, or skin lesions and scars that can corroborate past surgeries.
   
   Anthropometric details like height and weight are usually self-reported, with a demonstration of measurement if feasible, allowing BMI to be auto-calculated. If you have home monitoring devices, vitals such as blood pressure, pulse, oxygen saturation (SpO₂), and temperature may also be noted by showing the device and its reading on camera.
5. Review of medical reports: If you have recent test reports, such as blood work or imaging results, the examiner may review them. In some cases, if potential risks are identified, you may be asked to undergo additional physical tests.
6. Decision or next steps: Based on your responses and reports, the insurer may approve the policy, request further medical tests, or adjust the premium according to the level of risk assessed. Certain factors, like a history of medical conditions (e.g., diabetes, hypertension, chest pain, breathlessness, or recent hospitalisation), abnormal home vitals, incomplete or inconsistent disclosures, or being in a higher-risk category due to age or sum assured may prompt the insurer to request additional medical tests before approving your policy.

In such cases, the insurer may order specific investigations like blood tests, ECG, treadmill test, or spirometry, or direct you to undergo a full in-person medical examination (MER) as per their underwriting grid .

Did You Know? In telemedical exams for term insurance, insurers don’t just rely on doctors showing up on video. They run quality assurance checks by auditing call samples for medical accuracy, bedside manner, and adherence to the script. Doctors are given a crib-sheet of dos and don’ts like avoiding shorthand, asking all mandatory questions, and using a standard closing script to explain next steps. And if the process is outsourced to a tele-med partner, insurers enforce strict vendor oversight through SLAs and tightly scoped data-sharing rules. After the MER is done, insurers often reach out to collect your feedback, to gauge satisfaction, catch process gaps, and improve the overall customer experience.

Do’s and Don’ts During the Examination

Here are best practices (Do’s) and pitfalls to avoid (Don’ts) during your telemedical exam:

Do’s	Don’ts
Disclose your medical history honestly, including any chronic illnesses or treatments.	Hide or misstate any medical or family history. Omissions can lead to claim denial later.
If you don’t know the answer to a question (exact dates, etc.), admit it.	Guessing or stuffing in false details to seem healthier than you are.
Make sure your environment allows clear communication, good audio/video, and minimal interruptions.	Take the call in a rush or from a noisy space.
Ask for clarification if you do not understand a question.	Be vague or evasive; a lack of clarity may cause doubts.

Are Telemedical Checkups Helpful for NRIs?

Yes. Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) often find telemedical checkups particularly useful because:

• They eliminate or reduce the need for travel or locating local diagnostic centres in their country.
• They make the insurance process faster and more accessible. Even if you're outside India, you can complete much of the process remotely. 
• The convenience reduces friction in documentation and helps avoid delays that would otherwise arise from medical logistics.

How It Actually Plays Out in Underwriting?

When you apply for term insurance, the insurer doesn’t make decisions on telemedical exams in isolation. Insurers use a risk grid, a matrix based on age, sum assured (SA), and health disclosures, to decide whether a telemedical exam is enough or whether further medical tests are required. This grid helps balance speed with risk control:

• Low-risk bands: The insurer considers the medical history and the video exam is sufficient without requiring additional tests.
• Moderate-risk bands: Telemedical is allowed, but any red flag (e.g., diabetes history, abnormal vitals, inconsistent disclosures) immediately triggers lab tests.
• High-risk bands: Telemedical is not permitted; the insurer mandates an in-person medical exam straight away.

Here’s a quick comparison of how applicants in different risk bands are assessed during underwriting:

Case	Applicant	Sum Assured	Disclosures	Outcome
A – Low Risk	28 years old	₹50 lakh	Healthy, no past illness, non-smoker	Falls in a low-risk cell. Video exam allowed, doctor records history & vitals; if clean, cleared without labs.
B – Moderate Risk	38 years old	₹1 crore	No major illnesses, non-smoker	Mid-risk cell. Telemedical exam conducted. If clean, then policy issued; if borderline BP/family history, then labs/ECG ordered.
C – High Risk	50 years old	₹2.5 crore	Smoker, on hypertension medication	High-risk cell. Telemedicine is not adequate. Full physical exam + labs (blood/urine, ECG, treadmill) required.

Ditto’s Take

At Ditto, we don’t just stop at explaining insurance jargon; we walk you through the entire process so that buying term insurance feels simple and stress-free. We gently guide you through every step, including telemedical checkups, ensuring there are no surprises. Our advisors always assist our clients in preparing for the interview, organising your medical documents, and ensuring complete health disclosures, so you can feel confident and your family reassured.

Why Talk to Ditto for Term Insurance?

Don’t worry! You don’t have to figure it all out alone. Whether it’s choosing the right plan, understanding the fine print, or preparing for medical checkups, Ditto’s got your back.

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