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 ?
How to pay less on your Health Insurance cover
I am sure this post will grab many eyeballs because of its title – considering how price sensitive we Indians are :).
Now you can make an insurance claim on your ayurvedic treatment too
Traditional systems of medicines such as ayurveda, unani, siddha and homeopathy have been used in India since ancient times. Now, the whole world has realized its benefits and is slowly moving to herbal drugs for treatment. In India, more than 60 % of the physicians are non-allopathic practitioners.
Making use of health insurance portability
Two years ago-
Mr. Dheeraj Kumar is 45 years old and has a medical insurance policy with a public sector general insurance company for the last 10 years. He has had a reasonably good health profile and has never made any health claim all these years.
How to choose the right health policy for yourself
Further to the previous article on the importance of owning a personal health policy, let us look at a few things to consider to ensure that you buy a customized comprehensive health cover which takes care of all your needs.
Buy a personal health policy even if you have one from your employer
Employers in both the private and public sector organizations in India seek to attract the best human resources in the industry and offer various attractive group health insurance covers to their employees with facilities like lumpsum payments, reimbursement of hospitalization expenses, fixed medical allowance etc. Group health insurance policies have a lot of advantages over individual mediclaim policies like lower costs, most of them have no waiting period for claims, even employees in a high risk category health wise with a not so good health profile are covered.
It is critical to have a critical illness cover
Mr. Rahul Arora is a software professional in his early 40s. He works for a well known MNC and draws around Rs 1,00,000/- p.m. He is the single income earner of the family and has a home maker wife and two school going kids. He has a reasonably good health profile.
One day he suddenly collapses in office and is rushed to the nearby hospital by his colleagues. The diagnosis-he has suffered a brain haemorrhage due to which he has had a partial paralytic stroke.
How do people react when they hear of such incidents happening around them to friends, relatives, colleagues and acquaintances?
First reaction : Sympathy for the person and his family
The second : Fear.”What if it happens to me too?”
But then they convince themselves. ”Only a handful of unfortunate people go through this, so it is not likely to happen to me”.
As much as we would like to believe this, the statistics differ. Today, due to our unhealthy and stressful lifestyles, the percentage of people contracting critical illnesses has increased dramatically. The good part is that due to medical advancement, the successful recovery rates have also increased. However, the treatment is extremely expensive and given that medical inflation in our country is significantly higher than economic inflation, it can wipe out a major portion of our life savings.
While timely treatment and successful recovery is priority, financial preparedness is also essential. It would ensure that one can focus only on getting better without having to worry about the costs involved.
Buying a critical illness cover for the family would help take care of this.
What is a critical illness cover?
A critical illness cover or policy reimburses the policy holder for the covered amount if he or she is diagnosed as suffering from any of the specified illness like heart attack, cancer, kidney failure, stroke, a major organ transplant etc. One can cover himself or herself for such risks either by buying a stand-alone critical illness policy or by taking an additional cover for the same with the main health policy. There are a variety of such policies offered by leading life/general insurance companies with specific benefits like hospitalization benefit, surgical benefit, post hospitalization benefit etc. You can choose one based on your requirement.
You can choose one based on your requirement. And in case you do not have one already, please avail of a critical illness policy right away when you are in a good health condition.
Because, as it is rightly said ‘Health Insurance can be bought only when you do not need it, because when you really need it, you are no longer eligible to get it’.
Sriraksha Financial Planning Services 