Should I take Health Insurance - 2?

                                        

We had seen the need for health insurance in our last article; in this article we will see the benefits of getting this insurance and how careful we should while choosing this one. The main and important benefit is to get your savings to be protected from this medical emergency. We all work hard to earn and the hard earned money is for near and dear ones. If any medical emergency occurs all attention will be to save ourselves and the dear ones rather than keeping the money in our bank account. This can occur to anybody at any time and the best way is to keep ourselves guarded with Health Insurance.

In most of the offices they provide group insurance policy, but it is advisable to have a personalized health insurance policy to have continuity and to get a comprehensive coverage. Group policy may not cover all the diseases and there may be a co-payment clause in which you will be forced to share the fees with the hospital. Another important point to note is due to globalization or due to urge to earn more, many of us are shifting companies often and this may result in discontinuity of health insurance policy because during treatment if it is classified as pre existing disease new company may not entertain to reimburse or provide cashless facility.

Benefits of health insurance

• Most of the insurance companies offer 24 hour day care treatment also which will be of great help.
• Ambulance cover is provided nowadays
• Second opinion can be sought if we have doubt with the first medical checkup as it may help in unwanted spending.
• Pre natal and post natal hospitalization cover is provided.
• Room rent, doctor fees, surgery fees, medical bills etc will be covered with this single policy.
• In some of the companies free medical checkup is allowed once in a year as add on benefit.
• A two year policy will have a reduced premium and protect you from increase in price of premium due to inflation.

Even day care treatments are accepted in many of the policies based on doctor’s advice as many of the laser surgery are getting completed within hours and people are asked to leave hospital immediately.

Health insurance offered by

Health insurance is part of Life Insurance. In most of the corporate companies, this is being offered as group policy, where there will be a cap limit to any of the ailments or else there will be copayment rule. In copayment person has to share part of his medical payments by himself and the rest will be borne by the insurance company. In India health insurance is being offered by Religare, Apollo munich, ICICI prudential, Max Bupa etc.

Exclusions and things to check:

The most important thing to check is the waiting period, during which policy will not be covered for specific disease. Any serious pre existing disease has to be told to the insurance companies in advance to get it checked for policy coverage, because once found later the paid premium will be of no use. Diagnostic charges, alternative therapies, abortion, additional supplements, specific ailments, resulting from war are not covered in this policy. Claim ratio of the company needs to be analyzed as this says how soon they are responding to the claims.

How much to Take?

A policy of few lakhs of no use, it is advisable to take a policy of no less than 10lakhs as any heart related ailments can make you spend a minimum of lakhs in any hospital. If you want to get treatment from a reputed hospital the bed charges, doctor fees, surgery charges, lab tests and pills will run in to some extra amount which cannot be reduced, so it is really needed to get a cover of minimum of 10 lakhs initially and slowly the cover can be increased.

A Health insurance policy can be taken in online easily and for a 25 – 35 year old the premium will be not more than 10000.

Should I take Health Insurance - 1?

      

Insurance is nothing but risk protection, in the same way health insurance is the pure protection of one’s health. It is grouped under Life insurance. It is being provided by most of the insurance companies in India. Similar to Term policy this one also pure risk protection, if you get any disease it can be used or else this policy will be of no use, let us see how this is very essential in today’s world.

Need for HealthInsurance

If we keep ourselves in good health condition, one may presume no need of this policy, but you may not know the daily risk which may result in serious injuries all of a sudden. The increase in medical inflation may not be known to you unless someone close to has been cured for any ailment. Medical inflation is very rapid and Government has not stepped in to reduce it or provide an alternate for this. It had increased and continuously increasing at a rate of 15 to 20%. Therefore it is best to keep this policy as a friend. Even a close friend may not be able to help you with the money during his difficult times, but this friend i.e health insurance will be of great help which will help you in getting out of hospital easily.

Whether you agree or not, our food habits had changed tremendously from what we have been having to what we have been offered nowadays. It is just that we have been running in fast lane from Monday to Friday and we just grab the food half heartedly in the run to office and gorge food rapidly in the half an hour gap for lunch to work again. Not to miss the dinner parties and office lunches were we show who we are in having sumptuous meal. This irregular food habits will show us the world of medicines to have in our mid thirties. Our parent had started taking the medicines from their fifties and sixties but we have been getting to the world of hypertension and diabetes right from thirties and some even in early twenties. These two are serious threats which may lead you to other medical complications easily. Are you saying you are healthy inspite of having this lifestyle, hold on as you may not how your body will behave once the breakeven point is reached?

This is not to frighten you and make you seriously ill, it is just to make you understand how serious medical complications may be if not attended on time.

Medical Inflation

This may be a new term, but you need to know as the price of doctor’s fees along with getting treatment from a reputed medical hospital has increased steeply in the last few years. When is the last time you have visited a Government hospital for any treatment and got a good treatment, am sure almost NIL. Days are gone when we have got good treatment along with pills within 50 or 100. Now a doctor fees is at a minimum of 100 and any injection along with pills for a normal fever will get you around a minimum of 300. If the fever continued for few more weeks, then bills for lab testing and day care treatment will run into some thousands.

All these are for normal or severe fever, cold etc anything which requires a surgery may get into serious trouble as it may dent your savings.

You can just have a look at the medical treatment cost of various countries in comparison with India

Look at the cost of some of the heard names like Angioplast, Heart bypass, Heart valve replacement etc itself is running into some lakhs. Do you believe that with this changed lifestyle, less money in bank account and more loans to close will you be able to manage this sudden situation?

Is it big Saver?

Yes, absolutely if someone is ready to spend for you in lakhs when you are just paying a premium of some thousands, is it not big saving in your financial life? Don’t think about the situation that you are not utilizing this service, you don’t need to utilize if you are healthy enough. You can get a free health checkup every year and make sure that you are healthy enough.