As per the latest data, the highly contagious covid pandemic has affected about 14.6 million people across the world, with over 6 lakh people already having succumbed to the disease. And the virus keeps spreading at alarming rates, with no signs of abating, even as the world is struggling to find vaccines, cure or a foolproof treatment.

While all of us live in this fear of contracting it, if the worst comes true, apart from the risk and uncertainty surrounding recovery and long term impact on health, another important thing to consider would be whether we are prepared to handle the expenses associated with it. This assumes more importance with the rising numbers with each passing day and acute shortage of hospital beds, and lack of amenities in the ones provided by the govt, the private hospitals charging a fortune.

Considering all this, the govt of India has directed health insurers to offer Corona Kavach policies which are specially meant to cover expenses arising due to contracting this virus. Who should take this policy?

• If you and your family are already covered by an individual mediclaim policy, all hospitalization and expenses related to covid will probably be covered. However it is important that the same is confirmed with your service provider.
• If you do not have a personal mediclaim, but are covered by your employer by a group health insurance, it may make sense to opt for a covid policy. Group policies are known to be inflexible, and may reimburse only a part of the cost. Even in this case, one can check with the company what is covered.
• If you do not have any mediclaim policy, it is advised to subscribe to the Covid policy for all the members of the family. The premiums are very low – ranging from about Rs 600-700 to 3000-3500, one time per head depending upon the amount of insurance which ranges from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 Lakh. The coverage period is from 6 months to a year, depending upon the service provider. God forbid, if someone who doesn’t have a mediclaim were to get afflicted by this, they will have to dip into their personal savings to fund this, which will jeopardize their long term financial goals too. Compared to this, the onetime nominal premium is a relatively small price to pay.

In case you wish to buy a covid policy, here is the URL and link of one of the best ones available right now.

https://protection.bcfsl.in/?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=internal&utm_campaign=F4502

The policy has to be bought online directly using the link above , and the confirmation and policy issuance details will be communicated to you by sms or email.

In case of any further queries or clarifications, you can reach us at : sriraksha2007@gmail.com or call on 9820418134.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not constitute any financial advice in any way nor suggest or promote investments in any products.