Covid Insurance Cover : Do you need one ?
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.
Top up health plans- High coverage at a low cost
Krishna is a 40 year old finance professional working with a private firm. His family consists of his home maker wife and two young children. A couple of years back, an article in a magazine made him aware of the importance of medically insuring himself and his family. This prompted him to buy a family floater policy with an annual sum insured of 4 lakhs on which he pays a premium of around 15,000/- per annum. He was pleased with his decision of having adequately provided for any unforeseen medical emergency.
Do housewives need life insurance?
The main purpose of life insurance is to provide financial stability to the breadwinner’s dependent family members in the event of his untimely death. Today it is more common to find women who are financially independent with careers; yet there are a significant number of them who choose to stay at home and take care of the house and their young children.
In such families, it is usually only the husband who takes a life cover for himself as the housewife is perceived to have no monetary value. Even the life insurance companies prefer insuring working people – many of them do not offer to insure housewives or have an upper limit on the maximum insurance cover which can be provided, that too subject to the husband’s income and existing cover! They do have a seemingly very valid argument for this – while the loss of a stay at home mom or wife is an irreparable loss for the family in emotional terms, since she doesn’t contribute to the family income in any way, it doesn’t have any monetary impact. And since the loss of income is what an insurance policy is supposed to protect against, it doesn’t make sense to insure her and is viewed as an unwanted expense.
Should you buy a health policy from a life insurer?
If you have ever tried buying a life insurance policy online, it is likely that the insurance company’s website will prompt and ask if you would like to buy an additional health plan too. The health insurance market, which till some years back was exclusively the domain of general insurance companies, has now been invaded by the life insurance providers with each one of them having at least two or three medical insurance policies in their product suite, along with the term, ULIP and retirement plans. How do the mediclaim policies offered by Life insurers differ from those offered by mediclaim companies ?
Soon you can hold your insurance policies in electronic form
The recent guidelines issued by IRDA would now enable you to hold your insurance policies in electronic form. The benefits of doing so need not be explained- transparency, lower transaction costs, ease of operation – transactions like switching and other changes can now happen at a click of a button. Most importantly, it will do away with the job of carefully and painstakingly maintain and preserve a physical folder with all the original insurance policy documents, for years together.
It is taxing to surrender/close insurance policies before time
It is mid March, and just a fortnight left for the end of the financial year. Mr. A has not been able find time to invest the entire Rs 1 Lakh in section 80 C towards income tax rebate for the year. So, in a hurry to invest and save tax before the due date, he employs the services of Mr. B, an insurance agent who is readily available and more than willing to offer his services and sells him an insurance plan. After a couple of years, Mr. A realizes than the policy is not one of the best ones in the market, has high charges and has given returns below expectations. So he decides to wait till the minimum lock-in period gets over and then surrender it.
Insurance policies to get more client focused from 1 October 2013
Five days from now, on 1st October 2013, new IRDA guidelines regarding issue of insurance policies would come into effect. Though most of the leading Insurance companies are still in the process of designing new products in accordance with these guidelines, here are some of the basic changes which are likely to get incorporated-
Sriraksha Financial Planning Services 