Can Smoking Affect Your Health Insurance Cover?
Soaring medical costs in the 21st century have many Indians diving for health insurance coverage in India. Health insurance premiums were at one point used just for tax benefits. But today we need health insurance in order to avoid huge out-of-pocket expenses if we are hospitalized. Hospitalization costs have increased rapidly along with improvements in medical care. Hospitalization can cost anywhere from Rs. 60,000 for 2-3 days for a simple case of food poisoning and can go up to Rs.3-4 lakhs for a cardiac stent. If you live in a Metro, cost of hospitalization can go up even further, with the expensive facilities at big hospitals. Diseases like cancer can put a big hole in your plans for your family’s education, wedding expenses, or even your own retirement plans. “Insurance Cover” is a basic benefit of any plan.
A corporate Insurance plan may no longer be enough to cover costs for an entire family. You may need additional health insurance coverage in India as a top-up to avoid heavy out-of-pocket expenses.
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Effects of Smoking on your Health
If you are a smoker, you are at further risk for lifestyle diseases and also for an increase in cancer risk. Your chances of being hospitalized covered in your health policy increase much more when compared to a person who does not smoke. You could be at a higher risk of getting:
- High Blood Pressure
- Cancer (lung cancer)
- Stroke
- COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) like emphysema
- Heart Ailments
- Respiratory illnesses like Chronic Bronchitis and many others.
- Osteoporosis
And higher chances of pregnancy complications if you are a woman.
Heavy smoking in youth may give you chronic disease later on. Doctors are also noticing younger and younger people ending up in hospitals due to work-related stress together with a lack of exercise and heavy smoking.
It’s no wonder that Health Insurance companies are asking you to pay more premiums with so many risk factors. Your mortality rate increases the longer and the more you smoke. Your average frequency of hospitalization will be higher than that of a non-smoker. Insurance companies must take all this into account when you apply for health insurance coverage in India.
How Does Smoking Affect Your Health Insurance Premium?
Though smoking is a serious risk factor for you to develop a disease, you should not avoid getting health insurance coverage in India. It is becoming increasingly important with the expense of hospitalization going up yearly. As a smoker, you may have to pay more premiums, and insurance cover is also important for you too. You can find a smoker-friendly insurance company that will not reject you with a little bit of research. You may be asked to get a few additional tests to determine how much you will pay in premium. If you already suffer from an illness due to smoking you may also end up paying more premium than a non-smoker. Age is also considered while setting premiums, so if you are young you may want to get health insurance early so that you pay fewer premiums. They will also factor in details of whether you are a heavy or light smoker while deciding the premium you pay.
It’s better to not hide your smoking habit in order to have a trouble-free reimbursement of expenses in case of hospitalization later on. Most insurance companies will have strict guidelines for issuing payments so you should state all the facts clearly at the outset. They investigate thoroughly before issuing payments. You don’t want to be refused payment of hospitalization expenses at a crucial juncture because you hid facts while taking out your policy.
Additional Reading:- Importance of Health Insurance and Its Features
Quit smoking as soon as possible! It’s better for your health, the health of your loved ones, and your insurance premiums too! If you quit smoking there are chances that you will be considered a non-smoker within a few years. Look for a smoker-friendly insurance company, yes, they are out there. The premium you pay for health insurance coverage in India may be less than with a more stringent health Insurance company. Take out a health insurance policy at a younger age to derive the benefits of being disease-free. You will probably not be rejected or end up paying a lot higher this way.
Are there different health insurance plans for smokers and non-smokers?
Well, it’s depending on the person that how many cigarettes he smokes in a day because some insurance companies offer you a premium as per your smoking habit. Health insurance companies offer health policies for both smokers and non-smokers, but if you are a smoker then it would be problematic for you. If you are smoking 10 or more than 10 cigarettes in a day then it’ll affect your premium and if you are smoking 2-4 cigarettes in a day then it’ll not affect the premium of health policy.
If you are a smoker and you want to buy a health policy then you have to clear some sort of medical test to clear the current health status of you, it’s the basic demand of the insurer company and if they are insuring a smoker then they always look at smoker health status daily. If any kind of disease comes out in the health report, then the insurance company covers this disease after a waiting period, just like covering pre-existing diseases. The insurance companies never offer a higher premium to a smoker until there is no health complication, and some the insurance doesn’t load premiums for smokers. Maybe insurance cover will be different because both people have need of different things.
Why does a smoker need health insurance?
It’s not only about the smoker, everyone needs of health policy for living a stress-free life smoker person should think about the health policy because everyone knows that one day their smoking habit will affect of health, and that day you will need the policy for taking care of yourself and your health. Smoking is like a slow poison, it’ll affect your health slowly-slowly and it makes your body hollow.
And the second thing is expensive health treatment, we all know that taking treatment in a private hospital is quite expensive and everyone can’t afford it, and there is no option apart from taking treatment in a private hospital. In this scenario health policy will help you, there is a lot of network hospital of Insurer Company and it’ll make things easy for you. Insurance cover is a basic need in a smoker’s situation because a smoker can be affected by any disease.
Conclusion
Being a smoker does not automatically disqualify you from getting health insurance coverage in India. Look for a good insurance provider and get your coverage before you get a disease. Don’t pay huge unexpected medical bills because you thought you could not get insurance. Tell the truth while taking out a policy, so that settlement will be a whole lot easier and your risk of rejection of a claim is minimized.
With the cost of healthcare increasing every year, be smart. Get health insurance when you are young, try to quit smoking, and live a healthy life.
