Buying Health Insurance For Your Family? Here's All You Need To Know – The Quint

In today’s era, a health insurance plan for the family has become inevitable due to skyrocketing medical expenses. And if you don’t have any health coverage for your family, some chances might create obstacles and end up exhausting all your savings.

Being aware of the importance of a health insurance policy is just like taking the step ahead for you and your family’s future. However, selecting an ideal health insurance plan can be challenging when there is a gamut of available insurance policies. Some offer unique features, but some insurance policies provide standard features. Therefore, it’s crucial for you to know about the features and points to be considered before opting for any health insurance plan.

This article will walk through the key features, inclusions, and considerations you must look at before opting for a family health insurance plan. Let’s explore and look at features to be considered before buying health insurance.

1. Treatments and Diseases

Most health insurance plans highlight the specific diseases and treatments for which coverage is available in their policy wordings. It is imperative to understand your needs, the right type of plan that can address your requirements and finally, the key inclusions that you’re looking for.

2. Network Hospitals:

Network hospitals are those that have direct tie-ups with health insurance companies. These hospitals also provide cashless facilities that save you from the headache of settling the bill amount with the hospital. Before opting for a health insurance plan, you should look for a maximum number of network hospitals in your city.

3. The Waiting Period

The waiting period is when you can’t opt for a claim against the health insurance plan. It is applicable for pre-existing diseases and maternity benefits. The waiting period can be stretched from days, months to a few years, depending on the insurance company and the plan you are looking to purchase. So do check the applicable waiting period on your health insurance plan before buying.

4. Exclusions

After buying a health insurance plan, you might feel relaxed and secure that you have covered for your family and yourself for any treatments in the future. But before purchasing, if you don’t go through the exclusion section of the policy, you might face rejection at the time of your claim. So before finalizing any health insurance plan, go through its exclusions and select the one that offers adequate coverage for yourself and your loved ones.

5. Pre-Existing Diseases

Pre-Existing Diseases are those you suffer from before opting to buy a health insurance plan. Insurance companies do not cover them in your policy but they have a 2 to 4 years waiting period in which they will not be liable for any claim arising on account of your pre-existing disease. So it’s crucial to look for health plans that cover your existing illness and offer a reduced waiting period. *Standard T&C Apply

6. Alternative treatments

Alternative treatments are non-allopathic treatments such as yoga, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy (AYUSH). Many insurance companies allow these non-allopathic treatments coverage up to specific limits. During the Covid-19 pandemic, AYUSH treatments have gained importance and some people prefer these over standard allopathic medicines.

7. Add-on Covers

Add-ons are optional coverages available with health plans to increase coverage scope. You can choose any suitable add-on to customize your health insurance plan. Note that every add-on cover requires an additional premium added to the compensation of the base policy.

Important things to keep in mind about your health insurance plan

Do’s

If any of your family members have any pre-existing medical disease, you should highlight it before submitting the health mediclaim.

If you are looking to insure your parents as well, then opt for an individual health insurance for senior citizens rather than including them in floater plans. This would help provide them with appropriate coverage via a plan that is tailor-made to secure their needs and simultaneously reduce the premium of your floater policy. This is primarily due to the fact that premium of family floater plans is decided basis the age of the oldest member covered under the plan.

If you want to take the cashless route to pay your hospitalization expenses under a family mediclaim, you should inform the organization or TPA in advance for the cashless authorization. In case of emergency, try to inform them with 24 hrs of hospitalization.

Select the hospital listed in the mediclaim so that you can opt for cashless hospitalization benefits under the entire family health insurance. If you want to be hospitalized and treated in a hospital that is not highlighted in the mediclaim policy, you should collect all the medication and hospitalization documents, prescriptions, invoices, etc.

Always remember documentation is crucial for approving your claim. Hence keep all relevant and required documents handy to facilitate quick, hassle-free claims.

Stay updated and educate yourself regarding a family health plan thoroughly. So whenever you file a claim, it will be better prepared to make sure that your mediclaim is approved.

Don’ts

Do not extend your premium payment beyond the grace period for a family insurance plan’s renewal. You do not want to lose out on crucial benefits such as the Cumulative Bonus.

Never make small and frequent claims against your mediclaim policy for your family; this will diminish the overall sum insured of the plan thus making it inadequate when an emergency arises. It would also nullify the accrued Cumulative Bonus, preventing you from availing a higher sum insured during renewal.

File a claim under your health policy for the family after collecting all required documents ready. There are chances that incomplete files will be rejected if the required information is not furnished.

Benefits provided by Bajaj Allianz General Insurance policies:

Cashless treatment at 6,500+ network hospitals across India

In-house HAT (Health Administration Team) to enable quick claims processing

Smartphone-based claim settlement up till INR 20,000 using the Health CDC feature

You get a tax benefit by paying a premium towards your health insurance plans in India. Tax benefit is subject to change in tax laws.

Cumulative bonus that increases your Sum Insured (SI) for every claim-free renewal.

Bajaj Allianz General Insurance has also recently launched a full-ledged Health Prime add-on rider that covers Tele Consultation, Investigations, Annual Preventive Check-ups & more for individual as well as family floater policies.

Wellness benefit offering concessions during renewal

*Standard T&C Apply

These are some benefits provided by Bajaj Allianz General Insurance. While opting for any health insurance plan, it is vital to check features and coverage as per your requirement.

Conclusion:

It is noteworthy that medical emergencies can erupt anytime. Hence, it is essential to have adequate health insurance cover, which can help you financially manage medical emergencies better. Therefore, you can opt for the Bajaj Allianz General Insurance health insurance plan that offers comprehensive coverage and customization options to buy the best health insurance plan. Insurance is the subject matter of solicitation. For more details on benefits, exclusions, limitations, terms and conditions, please read sales brochure/policy wording carefully before concluding a sale.