Ceylinco General Insurance has launched a policy covering dengue and chikungunya, offering benefits of up to Rs. 250,000 for an annual premium of Rs. 2,000, Hiru News reported.
The company describes the Ceylinco Dengue Chikungunya Cover as the world’s first insurance protection specifically covering both mosquito-borne illnesses. That claim is the insurer’s own and has not been independently verified.
What the policy pays
The cover is built from three separate benefit lines, which together account for the full Rs. 250,000.
Recovering at home. Policyholders receive Rs. 5,000 a day for up to five days during a first instance of recovery at home — a maximum of Rs. 25,000. A further five days is available in a second instance, taking the home recovery benefit to Rs. 50,000 in total.
Hospitalisation. Where admission is required, at either a government or a private hospital, the policy pays Rs. 10,000 a day for up to 10 days, a maximum of Rs. 100,000.
Intensive care. If the patient requires intensive care, an additional Rs. 20,000 a day for up to five days is available, a further maximum of Rs. 100,000.
The three ceilings sum exactly to the headline Rs. 250,000, and the maximum payout is 125 times the annual premium.
The home-recovery benefit is the novel part
Both executives quoted singled out the same feature, which is the one that distinguishes the product from conventional hospitalisation cover: it pays out even when the patient is never admitted.
“For the first time, we have also introduced and extended this insurance cover for patients seeking treatment at home,” said Ajith Gunawardene, Executive Chairman and CEO of Ceylinco General Insurance.
Most dengue and chikungunya cases are managed without admission, which means a policy keyed only to hospital days would pay nothing in the majority of infections while the patient still loses income.
Rex Gunathilake, Director and CEO, said the illnesses could affect anyone and that the financial impact added considerably to the stress on families. “With the Ceylinco Dengue Chikungunya Cover, we have focused on providing an affordable and practical solution that offers financial support not only when a person is hospitalised, but also while recovering at home,” he said. “At an annual premium of just Rs. 2,000, we believe this cover provides an accessible way for more Sri Lankans to obtain financial protection against these illnesses.”
Terms
The cover carries no age limit and runs for one year, subject to a 21-day waiting period. The maximum duration of coverage per event is 10 days.
That last term sits awkwardly against the benefit table as reported: the hospitalisation line alone runs to 10 days, and the intensive care line adds up to five more. Hiru’s report does not say whether ICU days count within the 10-day cap or beyond it, nor how the two home-recovery instances relate to it.
The policy is sold through Ceylinco General Insurance branches and the company’s online platform, Ceylinco VIP HUB. It can also be attached as a value-added benefit by retail chains and other businesses, or offered by employers as a staff benefit.
The market it is entering
Dengue is a permanent feature of the Sri Lankan disease burden rather than a seasonal one. August closed with 10,157 recorded cases, taking the year to 95,493 with 72 deaths — and that was a sharp fall from July’s 29,964. Control programmes were ordered in schools ahead of the new term, and Cabinet has separately approved a review of the 1897 ordinance that still governs communicable disease control.
Chikungunya is the less-documented half of the pair. It shares the Aedes mosquito vector with dengue and is rarely fatal, but is known for joint pain that can persist for months — a profile that fits an income-replacement benefit more closely than a hospitalisation one. No comparable monthly national case series for chikungunya has been published alongside the dengue figures.
What was not reported
Hiru did not report claim volumes the company expects, how the 21-day waiting period is applied to someone infected shortly after buying, what documentation a home-recovery claim requires, or whether a positive laboratory test is a condition of payment. It gave no launch-date detail beyond the announcement itself.
The report was a single-outlet account. No other verified Sri Lankan newsroom had carried the launch at the time of writing.
