Life is very unsure and you never know when a person falls ill. So, it is very prominent to avail a Health Insurance Plan to cover medical expenses. With medical expenses increasing each and every day, not having a health insurance plan can burn a hole in your pocket. If you directly avail a health insurance plan, it’s just not enough. There are few points you need to keep in mind, before and after availing a health insurance scheme.
To make sure your health insurance plan is suitable and uninterrupted; you must make proper revelation to your health insurer. Don’t even dream of hiding prominent facts from your insurance company. If you will hide then you will be in serious trouble during the claim settlement. In this article, we will discuss all important details about Health Insurance.
What is Health Insurance?
Health Insurance or medical insurance is a contract between the insurer and policyholder where the insurance company provides medical coverage to the insured up to the sum insured limit. Multiple advantages on health plans are available, like coverage for pre & post hospitalisation, medical check-ups, room rent coverage, cashless facility, and many more.
Benefits Of Buying Health Insurance Plan Online:
Buying a health insurance policy online has several benefits. Take a look at them below:
Easier to Compare Plans – It is very easy to compare health insurance schemes from various insurers online at websites like Policybazaar.com to make an informed decision.
More Convenient – It is convenient to buy the policy online because you do not have to visit the branch of the insurance company or take an appointment to meet an insurance agent.
Online Discounts – It enables you to avail discounts on premiums for buying the policy online.
Lower Premiums – Health plans are available for a lower premium online as insurance companies save a lot on functioning costs.
Least Paperwork – The process of buying a health insurance policy online involves minimum to 0 paperwork.
Policy Available 24×7 – A health insurance plan can be purchased online any time of the day, even on public holidays also, which is not possible in offline buying.
Digital Payment Options – It enables you to avoid cash payments and use digital payments procedures to pay the premium online safely.
Instant Policy Purchase – A health insurance policy is issued immediately when purchased online unlike offline buying.
Time-saving – It saves you a lot of time as the policy is provided within a few minutes of buying.
7 Reasons To Buy a Health Insurance Plan:
Medical inflation is rising every day making treatments very expensive. If you get hospitalized for a critical illness or lifestyle disease, you may end up losing all your savings. The only way to afford better quality of medical treatment during a health emergency is by buying a health insurance plan. Take a look at some of the top reasons to buy a health insurance policy below:
Beat Medical Inflation – A health insurance policy can aid you pay your medical bills, including pre and post-hospitalization expenses, today as well as in future despite the rising medical costs.
Afford Quality Medical Treatment – It aids you to afford the best quality medical treatment and care so that you can focus only on getting cured.
Fight Lifestyle Diseases – It enables you to pay for the persistent treatment of lifestyle diseases like cancer, heart attack, etc. that have been on the top with the changing lifestyles.
Protect Your Savings – It helps you to save your hard-earned savings by covering your medical expenses so that you can avail the required treatment without any monetary worries.
Avail Cashless Hospitalization Facility – It allows you to obtain a cashless hospitalization facility at any of the network hospitals of your insurance provider by raising a cashless claim.
Get Tax Benefits – It allows you to save tax on the health insurance premium that you’ve paid under section 80 D of the Income Tax Act for better financial planning.
Ensure Peace of Mind – It enables you to obtain medical treatment with peace of mind as you do not have to worry about paying the heavy and expensive hospital bills.
Benefits Of Health Insurance Plan In India:
Health-insurance policies offer a variety of health advantages to the insured depending on the plan. Following are the key benefits of buying a health insurance policy in India:
Hospitalisation Expenses – A health insurance plan covers the medical expenses incurred on getting admitted to a hospital for more than 24 hours. It involves room rent, doctor’s fee, medicine expense, diagnostic test fees, etc.
Pre & Post Hospitalisation Expenses – It covers the medical expenses that you may have incurred on an illness before getting hospitalised as well as follow-up treatment expenses incurred after getting discharged. The pre-hospitalization and post-hospitalization costs are covered up to a certain number of days as stated in the policy document.
ICU Charges – A health-insurance plan also covers the cost of availing treatment in an ICU during hospitalisation.
Ambulance Cost – It covers the price of ambulance services availed to reach the nearest hospital during a medical emergency.
Cashless Treatments – All health-insurance sources in India provide cashless treatment facilities at their network hospitals. You do not have to worry about arranging cash to pay the hospital bills if you get admitted to a network hospital as it will be settled by your insurer under cashless claims.
Day Care Procedures – It also covers the cost of availing day care treatment that requires hospitalization for less than 24 hours.
Pre-existing Diseases – The best health-insurance policy also gives coverage for pre-existing diseases after you have completed the waiting period. Generally, pre-existing diseases are covered after a waiting period of 3 to 4 years.
AYUSH Treatment – It covers the cost of availing medical treatment through AYUSH school of medicines that includes Ayurveda, Unani, Homoeopathy, Siddha and Yoga.
Medical Check-ups – Most health-insurance companies in India offer free preventive health check-up facilities to the insured at regular intervals depending on the policy terms and conditions.
How To Choose The Best Health Insurance Policy?
Availability of a health-insurance policy is a very important step in financial planning. As medical expenses are rising every day, not having health insurance can blaze a hole in your pocket. You can not foresee when an individual will fall ill. Anything can happen anywhere to you or your family at any point of time, which means expensive medical treatment. So, you must always be prepared by availing a health insurance policy.
A lot of people simply depend on the group health-insurance policy, provided by their employer. But the fact is, it is not enough to meet today’s medical costs. You will be left uninsured in case you quit your job. So, it is very prominent to avail a separate health insurance plan.
Factors To Be Consider Before Buying a Health Insurance policy:
There are a some factors that you should consider firmly to make the right decision while buying a health insurance plan:
Check the Scope of Coverage – The policy coverage and the sum insured amount will decide the sort of illnesses and surgeries that you can claim during the policy term. Closely look at the advantages offered like hospitalization expenses, daily cash benefit, COVID hospitalization cover, censorious illness cover, maternity cover, etc. while choosing a health plan.
Adequate Sum Insured – The sum insured amount is a key deciding factor in selecting a medical insurance policy. Looking at the continuing inflation it is advisable to buy a health insurance plan with a minimum sum insured of Rs 10 Lakh that can go up to Rs one crore. If it’s a family floater policy or senior citizen insurance, the higher the sum insured the finer the coverage will be.
Policy Type – There are various types of medical insurance policies that are available in India. As per your requirement, you can select to buy individual health insurance, senior citizen health insurance, family floater, etc.
Furthermore, you can buy Top up and Super Top up health insurance along with your existing health plan to intensify the coverage. This is beneficial in case your base sum insured gets worn out during the treatment. You can select this option at the time of policy purchase and renewal.
Waiting Period Clause – Your health-insurance policy only comes into work once the initial waiting period is over. If any claim is filed during the initial waiting period except for accidental hospitalisation claims, the insurer can reject it. Furthermore, the waiting period clause also applies to pre-existing diseases like thyroid, blood pressure,and many more. It is also relevant to specific illnesses, treatments, and maternity cover. You can select a plan with a minimal waiting period.
Co-payment Clause – Your medical insurance policy may have a co-payment clause, which means a definite percentage of the claim amount should be borne by you. The co-payment option does not have any upshot on the sum insured.
It allows you to reduce your premium to a certain extent but certainly increases your out-of-pocket expenses. Only choose for this clause if you can pay off a part of your hospitalization bills, that can be 10% and above without a financial burden.
Room Rent Sub-limits – A health-insurance policy may have different sub-limits and the most common one is the room rent sub-limit. For example, if your medical insurance policy comes with a sum insured of Rs 3 lakh with a sub-limit of 1% on daily room rent, then your room cost will be covered up to Rs three thousand per day.
Any extra amount on room rent will have to be paid from your own pocket. So, a health scheme with no or minimal sub-limits is advisable.
Network of Cashless Hospitals – Check the list of network hospitals for an insurance company where cashless assertions can be filed. The maximum number of network hospitals you have in your vicinity,the better are the chances of availing cashless hospitalization benefits.
Lifelong Renew-ability Option – Medical insurance plans are normally renewed every year. When the policy term is about to close, in order to keep up with the insurance coverage, the insured has to pay the insurance premium at the time of renewal. When purchasing a health insurance plan, choosing a plan with a lifetime renewal option is beneficial in the long run.
Premium Loading Factor – Premium Loading is the extra amount that is charged to a risk prone policyholder in the premium, mostly in senior citizen health insurance plans.
Choosing a medical insurance policy with no loading will save you from paying an additional premium. Few insurers also charge a claim loading. This point, though ignored in the beginning, normally increases your out-of-the-pocket expenses at the time of claim.
Check the Claim Settlement Ratio – This is a prime criterion to assess the credentials of an insurer. You should always go with a company with an excellent claim settlement record. A claim settlement ratio above 80% can be the best choice.
Does Your Health Insurance Policy Cover COVID-19 Treatment?
Yes, your existing health insurance policy covers all the expenses of COVID-19 treatment. A lot of health insurers and general insurers have already launched health-insurance plans for coronavirus that include the medical expenses incurred on the treatment of coronavirus. Following the IRDAI guidelines, two special standard health insurance products, namely Corona Kavach policy and Corona Rakshak policy were launched and are being purchased by many individuals already.
How To Calculate Health Insurance Premium?
In order to keep the policy running, regular payment of a fixed premium is necessary. Did you ever imagine how this premium is calculated? There are certain factors that affect health-insurance premiums like the medical background of your family, sum insured, cumulative bonus, your personal medical record and so on.
Based on that, you might want to calculate your premium to figure out how much you would have to pay for the policy. It can be done through a health insurance premium calculator. A premium calculator is an online tool that calculates the premium to be paid as per the information provided by you, such as the preferred sum insured, age of the insured, etc. At Policybazaar.com, you can calculate your health insurance premium online easily.
When Is The Right Time To Buy Health Insurance?
The right time to buy a health-insurance plan is – Now. The best health plan will act as a financial shield against unplanned health related expenses. It is needless to say that the current pandemic has been a wake-up call for all of us. We never thought that we would be gripped by such an outbreak for a long period.
A lot of health-insurance plans offer coverage for COVID treatment. Not only that, policies cover a range of terminal or critical illnesses. So, instead of worrying about the hefty medical expenses, you should buy a health plan as soon as possible.
Click Here To Read About Elon Musk
You May Also be Interested To Know About Importance Of Saving, CLICK HERE To Read
