Although people have started taking care of their health, but they don’t have the absolute control over their health. Owing to sedentary lifestyle, increasing work pressure and deteriorating environmental conditions, people are becoming prone to serious health conditions that requires to access the quality health care. With the skyrocketing health care costs, it has become quite difficult for many to afford medical care services. Even a minor illness or injury costs you thousands of rupees and in case of a critical illness such as cancer, heart attack, kidney failure, etc. these illness are comes in health insurance coverage , the medical bills are so huge that you may have to pay off out of your savings and it may put your family in a financial crisis. Here, comes the role of health care insurance.
By having a health insurance, you can get cover for all the medical treatment expenses. A health insurance plan provides you a cover against the cost that may incur in the event of any unforeseen hospitalization or medical procedures.
While buying a health insurance, people don’t make a careful analysis regarding the sum insured and choose a cover amount somewhere 3 to 5 lacs. However, if you are living in a metro city and getting your family insured with 5 lacs medical cover is not all sufficient to pay off the medical expenses.
When you are approaching to buy a health cover, it is essential to get a higher coverage that can provide you ease in paying the medical bills.
Scenario for Choosing a Higher Health Coverage
Let us examine some scenarios that would help you know the need for choosing a higher health coverage.
Scenario A: Rajesh had taken a family floater medical insurance of Rs 3 Lacs along with the employer insurance of Rs 2 Lacs. In case, his wife underwent a surgery which costs around Rs 5 Lacs. The expenses incurred in this medical surgery were met by his employer’s insurance plus the family floater insurance he had. Now, assume in the same policy year, your father is hospitalized that incur expenses of around Rs 1 Lac. As, medical cover under both the plans become exhausted, he has to bear these expenses out of his pocket.
Scenario B: Shivam is a salaried individual and he got the health insurance cover of Rs 3 Lacs from his employer. He did not buy any other health cover. After a year, shivam had to switch his job and the new employer offered him a different health plan with the lesser coverage of Rs 2 Lacs. At 38 years of age, he had to pay a heavy premium to get a higher health insurance coverage.
Scenario C: Praveen aged 57 years, had a health cover of Rs 6 Lacs. Unfortunately, he met with an accident and had to undergo a medical surgery that incurred expenses of around Rs 10 Lacs.
Here, you can understand that getting a health cover of around 6 to 8 Lacs may not be able to cover the medical expenses.
Here, we are providing some key tips that will help you decide whether a health cover is sufficient or not.
- When buying a cover, choose coverage basis of several factors such as age, lifestyle, family history of diseases, any pre-existing disease. If you are at a young age, having less dependents with no adverse medical condition, you can opt for a less coverage. Before opting for a cover, assess you & your family’s health care needs, then choose a cover accordingly.
- Location factor also plays a key role in deciding the cover amount. If you are living in a metro city, a major surgery or a critical illness treatment may cost you over 10 Lacs and the same medical treatment at a non-metro location will cost you around 6 to 7 Lacs.
- Don’t rely only on the employer insurance. You also need to pick a separate health cover as required.
- When getting elderly parents insured under a health insurance plan, it is advisable to opt for a higher cover, considering their health condition.
- Taking a top-up plan along with a base health plan will help you get a higher coverage at a lower cost.
- Opting for riders such as Critical Illness Rider, Temporary or Permanent Disablement Rider, Accidental Death Rider, etc would be helpful, depending on situations.
Care Health Insurance Care offers a sum insured of Rs 60 Lacs and with HDFC ERGO General Health Easy Health Plan, you can opt for a sum insured of Rs 50 Lacs. These health insurance plans are available with higher coverage that you can opt for, depending on your needs.
Conclusion
There is no fixed amount that you should have as a health insurance. You need to assess your health care needs and then choose the cover amount accordingly. Ever rising inflation in the medical cost is also a major factor that you should consider while choosing a health insurance coverage.
Opting for a higher coverage does not mean that it would reimburse all the expenses. Prior to buying a health care insurance, you should pay attention about ‘what it covers’ and read its exclusions as well. Don’t forget to know about the sub-limits, network of hospitals and additional benefits available under the policy. Buying a higher coverage that you don’t need will only increase the cost of insurance, so rather than opting for a higher coverage, choose an adequate health insurance coverage.