As per the latest report, India spends about rupees 40 lac crore annually on health care, but commercial health insurance is still rupees 20 thousand crores, only 5% of the total expenditure. As a result, about 16% of Indians of the lower-income groups go below the poverty line (BPL) annually. However, there is a good sign that slowly, but steadily, the importance of having a health insurance policy is being realized in India. A good health insurance policy is an important financial product. But it’s equally important to choose the right product out of numerous from different insurers. Customers often get confused about picking health insurance policies for them.
The government in its Union Budget 2015, has raised the tax exemption limit for health insurance policies from Rs 15,000 to Rs. 25,000. For senior citizens and most senior citizens (age above 80 years), the limit will stand at Rs30,000, up from Rs20,000.
However, there are some important points to be considered while buying a mediclaim policy for you and your family.
Things You Should Consider Before Buying Health Policy
The following points will help you to Picking Health Insurance Policy and you can get the best plan at an affordable premium
- Do thorough research over the internet in order to choose the product that best suits your insurance needs.
- Compare premium rates and benefits of different plans of different insurance companies. Keeping benefits offered by different insurers in mind, choose the plan with the lowest premium.
- Be tactical while choosing a plan. Take those coverages only that you actually require. Unnecessary coverages could result in a higher premium rate.
- Your health is an important factor that determines your health insurance premium; so try to be in good health shape.
- Avoid smoking. The premium for a non-smoker is significantly lower than those who smoke.
- Avail NCB (no claim bonus) discount accrued over the period while renewing your health insurance policy. It will lower your premium.
- Buy separate policies for your parents/in-laws; as premium is determined on the senior-most members of the insured. Two separate policies will be cheaper than one bought for the whole family.
- Buy a health insurance plan at an early age as age is one of the major factors on which premium is determined.
Take a look at the coverage before picking a health insurance policy
Buying health policy is one best decisions that any person is taking ever, and the health policy is a much-needed thing in today’s time. We all see the outbreak of Covid-19 and we know that year 2020 was just the beginning of the “outbreak show”. The reason behind saying this is a “new variant of Covid-19”, every year Covid-19 comes with a new variant and makes headlines in media but deep down we all know that we need to fight with this, and health policy is a way to fight with Covid-19. Picking Health Insurance Policy is not easy for everyone.
Claim Process – Before buying a health policy, we need to know certain things about the insurance company, and “claim process and claim settlement” is one of those things that you should know. If you are good at something then you know that how to start and how to end and claim settlement process is an end of the policy but you have to know that what is the performance of the insurance company and how much time it’ll take to settle the claim. In the end, you will claim to settle the expenses that you spend during your treatment and they’ll reject your claim then it would be a big loss for you.
Family Floater Policy – Buying health policy in younger period life is quite good for everyone cause it’ll be a bit cheaper in comparison to buying a policy in the 40s or in 50s. If you are one of them who want to buy a health policy in a young period of life then you have to take care of one thing and that is”is your policy Family Floater Policy?” Because after some time, you will married and you also want to protect your wife with policy, at that time you need a health policy who turned from individual to family floater plan as per demand. Otherwise, you have to buy another policy to cover your family.
Network Hospital – Keeping in mind the convenience of the customers, mostly health insurance companies had tied up them with hospitals. But the question is, does your insurance company have enough network hospitals in your area because it can be trouble for you. Network hospitals mean, getting treatment cashlessly and there is no need of claiming for this treatment but if there is mostly Non-Network hospital in your area then it could be problematic for you.
Maternity Benefits – If your policy is a family floater policy then you should check that “this policy covers maternity benefits or not” cause it’s all about family and a burden on you financially. Most of the family floater policies offered maternity benefits with their plan and it helps you financially.
Pre/Post Hospitalization – These are some basic coverage that every health policy offerer, in the critical condition patient need a bed in the hospital, there are two reasons behind it. Firstly, the doctor wants to keep the patient in observation and the second is the critical health of the patient and if your patient is insured then the whole expenses will be covered by the insurance company.
Lifetime Renewal – Most of the health policies offered you a lifetime renewal option. In today’s time if you buy a health policy then it’s on whether you are renewing it or not but whenever you need it, you can renew it.