Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said that public sector general insurance companies had not withdrawn cashless mediclaim facility. "The public sector general insurance companies have not, I am emphasising on, have not revised or withdrawn the facility of cashless treatment," he said in the Lok Sabha. Mr Mukherjee said that the insurance firms have only started rationalising empanelment of hospitals and the standardisation of rates and specified procedures followed by these hospitals. From July 1, public sector insurance companies had suspended about 150 hospitals from their list of preferred provider network (PPN) which provide cashless hospitalisation services to policy holders under the mediclaim scheme. Last week, insurance regulator Irda chairman J Harinarayan had expressed hope that hospitals and insurers will be able to arrive at a mutual solution.
What are derivatives? Derivatives are financial instruments, which as the name suggests, derive their value from another asset — called the underlying. What are the typical underlying assets? Any asset, whose price is dynamic, probably has a derivative contract today. The most popular ones being stocks, indices, precious metals, commodities, agro products, currencies, etc. Why were they invented? In an increasingly dynamic world, prices of virtually all assets keep changing, thereby exposing participants to price risks. Hence, derivatives were invented to negate these price fluctuations. For example, a wheat farmer expects to sell his crop at the current price of Rs 10/kg and make profits of Rs 2/kg. But, by the time his crop is ready, the price of wheat may have gone down to Rs 5/kg, making him sell his crop at a loss of Rs 3/kg. In order to avoid this, he may enter into a forward contract, agreeing to sell wheat at Rs 10/ kg, right at the outset. So, even if the price of wheat falls ...
