Monday, 4 January 2016

Health Insurance Plan – The Big Objective of Insurance Companies

Healthcare costs continue to rise with each passing year. In fact, the yearly increase in healthcare costs outpaces inflation significantly. This leads to significant cash crunch in times of medical emergencies and people have to ask for loans from family and friends to pay for their treatment. However, the situation can be easily avoided with a health insurance policy.

Health insurance allows you to pay for all your healthcare expenses. And some policies provide health cover not only for the insured individual but also for his or her family members. Depending on the type of policy and insurance cover, expenses incurred are either reimbursed or paid for directly to the healthcare provider. Like in the case of other insurance, one has to pay regular premiums for health insurance. In return, the insurance company covers a portion of the medical costs. Health insurance is an important component of an employee benefits package and is used to attract quality talent by employers.

There are various types of health insurance plans available in the market today. Essentially, there are three kinds of health insurance covers:

Individual Health Insurance or Individual Mediclaim
This is the simplest and most popular type of health insurance plan available in the market. It offers risk cover to an individual towards medical and hospitalisation expenses to the extent of the sum assured.

Family Floater Plan
These plans are improved form of healthcare policies and are cheaper than individual policies. The term ‘floater’ means that a single sum insured covers all members of a family and is available to one or more members in case of an eventuality.

Unit Linked Health Plan (ULHP)
These are similar to unit linked insurance plans (ULIPs), they offer a mix of health insurance and investment. A part of the premium is invested, and the rest is available for health cover, providing a safety net as well as returns.

Benefits of Health Insurance
Peace of mind since you don’t have to worry about medical expenses
Reimbursement of pre- and post-hospitalisation expenses
Income tax benefits under section 80D
Flexible insurance cover
Benefit of lifelong renewal – avail facilities up to old age
No need to carry cash – avail cashless treatment in case of hospitalisation

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