Is it Good to Buy Health Insurance?

Yes, buying health insurance is a good idea as it will cover your expensive medical treatment. Besides, health insurance comes in both individual and family floater options, so you can cover yourself as well as your family. But how does it work? Suppose you have purchased a health insurance plan, and if you fall sick or injured and get hospitalized as a result, your hospital bills will be paid by the insurer. And given the inflation rate existing in the healthcare sector, managing your medical expenses will be convenient with health insurance. Let’s talk about the utilities of health insurance below.

Provide Financial Protection Against Medical Uncertainties

Health insurance offers you financial aid in times of medical emergencies. You can purchase health insurance with high sum insured to deal with such emergencies. The following are some of the top health insurance plans with high sum insured options –

Cashless Treatment at Hospitals

When you have health insurance, you can get cashless treatment at the insurer’s network hospitals. You can easily use the health insurance cashless facility by following the instructions shown below –

For a Planned Hospitalization

1. Intimate the insurer before 24 hours of hospitalization
2. Download the claim form from the insurer’s official website or branch office
3. Submit the claim form and wait for the approval
4. When the insurer has approved your claim request
5. Visit any of the network hospitals and show your health card at the information desk

For an Emergency Hospitalization

1. Show your health card at the information desk of the network hospital
2. Intimate the insurer about the hospitalization within 24 hours of admission
3. Download the claim form from the insurer’s official website or branch office
4. Submit the claim form and wait for the approval
5. If the claim is approved, the insurer will pay the hospital bills to the network hospitals directly

For Accident

1. Intimate the insurer immediately
2. Visit the network hospital
3. Submit the duly filled claim form plus the First Investigation Report (FIR)
4. Wait for the insurer approval
5. When the insurer has approved the claim request, your hospital bills shall be paid directly by the insurer

No Claim Bonus

If you are thinking that health insurance will be useless if you don’t claim, you are wrong! Because after each claim-free year, you will receive a No Claim Bonus (NCB) that will be added to your base sum insured. The NCB enhances your coverage limit, so if a health risk arises after a claim-free year, you will have the base sum insured plus NCB to cover the same.

An NCB could be 10-50% of your base sum insured based on the insurer. In some cases, the NCB can even go up to 100% of the sum insured.

Rider Options

In health insurance, you get the benefit of riders through which you can increase your coverage. Some common riders available under health insurance policies are –

1. Personal Accident Rider – Under this rider, the insured will get financial protection in case of accidental death/disability. So with this feature, your loved ones will be financially protected against the impacts of an unfortunate accident.
2. Critical Illness Rider – Protect yourself or your family against the expenses of critical illness treatment by opting for this rider. If you or any of the insured members are diagnosed with the covered critical illness during the policy term, the insurer will pay the rider sum insured.
3. Maternity Rider – You can add Maternity Rider to your health insurance policy to cover childbirth expenses, primarily the ones regarding delivery.
4. Room Rent Waiver Rider – Usually, insurers put a limit on room rent, which means if the room rent exceeds the limit, you need to pay from your pocket. And if you don’t want to pay extra for your hospital room rent, this rider can help waive the room rent capping from your base policy.
5. Hospital Cash Rider – With the hospital cash rider, you will receive a cash amount for hospitalization per day. The cash amount may vary from insurer to insurer. But you should know that the hospital cash rider benefit will be payable only if the hospitalization is for 24 hours or more.

Note – For these riders, you need to pay an extra premium amount.

Affordable Premium Amount

Let’s take a look at some of the health insurance plans that comes with protection at a minimum cost –

Note – The above-mentioned premium amounts are exclusive of applicable taxes and cess.

Tax Benefits

Health insurance not only provides you financial protection against medical expenses but also saves on your tax. As under Section 80D of the Income Tax Act 1961, you can get tax deductions up to INR 1.5 Lakh. This benefit shall be applicable, provided you have paid all your due premiums for the last financial year.

Conclusion

Now that you know the importance of health insurance for you, start searching for different types of health insurance plans and select the one that suits you the best.