Insuring Your Health

Insuring Your हेअलथ

While the average age of an Indian might have increased over the years the quality of health has certainly gone down. With ever increasing stress levels due to deadlines, long office hours, and improper food cycle cardiac, orthopedic, blood sugar etc are on the rise among most of the working class. The problem arises when you suddenly need to get hospitalized for some disease which you may have never heard of and the hospital dishes out a bill which drains all your savings over the years. The only way out is a health insurance. Even if you pay an annual premium of Rs 5,000 for next 10 years you end up paying only Rs 50,000, but probability of your getting hospitalised in these 10 years is much higher and even a 3 day stay in a good hospital will at least cost you upwards of a lakh depending upon the..nature of the treatment. Also you must take into account the tax benefit of up to Rs 15,000 (Rs 20,000 for senior citizens) you get on the annual premium amount on the health insurance policy.

Let us discuss some important points which will help you decide the best policy for you and your family.

Which policy is best for you?

There are various health plans available in the market that can confuse you. Broadly you have 2 choices-family floater or individual policy. A family floater covers your entire family while individual policy as the name indicates covers an individual. Although family floater is the cheaper option than individual policy experts advise going for an individual policy rather than a family floater.

Though the cost of individual policies is certainly higher than a family floater policy an option where each of the family members holds individual coverage equal to what you would have taken..as a family floater plan works best in all situations. Though the family floater plans are sold as a flexible option which can be used by the entire family a situation where whole family needs to get hospitalised will cause a drain on your finances as your family would be covered only to the extent of the coverage you get in the family floater. According to the insurance experts it is better to buy a Rs 2 lakh individual policy for each family member than buying a Rs 3 lakh family floater policy. Harsh Roongta, CEO, Apnapaisa.com says, “Since continuous coverage and claim history is critical in a health policy and the cost of taking individual policies is only marginally higher, it makes no sense at all to buy a family floater policy for an so called reduction in cost when the family is younger.