The pandemic has led to a surge in awareness regarding health. People are now keener to work on their lifestyle choices to boost their health. This has also led to an increase in buying health insurance policies. Even apart from the pandemic aspect, medical treatments are so expensive nowadays that they may drain your financial savings. If a family member gets hospitalized and undergoes surgery or some long treatment, the hospital bills can range up to even 4-5 lakhs.
Having a health insurance policy by your side covers all your medical expenses and saves you from the potential financial burden.
But how do we ensure adequate health insurance at a nominal cost?
What is Base Health Insurance Plans?
A base health insurance plan provides coverage for your hospitalization expenses that are inclusive of the pre and post-hospitalization expenses like the medical bills, fees of the doctor, any prescribed diagnostic tests, etc. The regular health insurance plans are basically of two kinds - Individual plans and Family Floaters.
Talking about the family floater plan, it covers the entire family under one umbrella. This plan should be enough to cover the medical hospitalization in a good hospital. A minimum of INR 10 lakh base hospitalization cover is considered good enough to cover for the medical expenses of treatments or surgeries in a good hospital.
However, in case of more than one family member getting hospitalized in different hospitals, or in case of long-term treatment, the effective way to increase the health cover is a super top-up plan.
You must consider the deductibles in a super top-up health insurance plan to know how the plan can overall benefit you. The deductible is a cost-sharing requirement under the health insurance policy. When you use a super top-up plan, it is advised for the deductible amount to be the same as that of your base health cover to get the maximum benefits out of it.
Also, in most top-up policies, there is no need for any medical check-up to the age of 55. Talking about regular health plans, the age defined is 45 years. The person has to mandatorily undergo some medical check-up to let the insurance company know about the person's current health status to be insured.
While it is obvious that one just cannot, but a health plan with a sum assured of INR 30 - 40 lakhs given the high premium, still if you look at the combination of a base plan with a cover of INR 10 lakh along with a super top-up of INR 30 lakh, it can be achieved with a very meagre premium.
Critical Illness Insurance Plan:
The critical illness health insurance plan offers coverage for life-threatening diseases or illnesses that require lifelong treatment. This plan covers a specific number of listed critical illnesses. The claim is paid in the form of a lump sum to the policyholder when he gets the diagnosis.
In case of critical illnesses, people usually stay at home, which eventually leads to income loss. In this case, since the insurance company pays the amount in a lump sum on diagnosis, that money can be further invested to ensure the house's financial stability. This helps the family in their daily and monthly expenses and takes off the financial stress that may otherwise burden them shortly.
The long-term expenses that are associated with the critical illness generally comprise in the form of medicines for the longest times, sometimes even a year or two, the mandatory visits to the doctor for a routine check-up, and the required medical tests every month or two to check the progress of the patient. Having a base health insurance plan will not cover such expenses compared to the critical illness plan.
The best critical illness cover plans usually cost about INR 5000/- for a 10-lakh plan for people up to 40 years of age.
So, while you are in confusion as to what to buy to achieve the maximum benefits and securing your financial savings, a combination of the best base health insurance plan and the best critical - illness insurance plan along with a super top-up would work for you as this combination will ensure a health cover at a very nominal cost.
Be it hospitalization for a short period or long-term treatment due to severe illnesses; these plans will help you in your difficult times.