Published on September 20th, 2019 | by Bibhuranjan

4 Important Things That You Need to Know Before Buying Health Insurance Plans

Health insurance, just like life insurance, is a significant investment to help you secure yours and your loved ones’ health and financial wellbeing. While there are plenty of health insurance plans in India, choosing the right one is a serious decision. It not only provides a sense of security and peace of mind but also ensures that you have a better chance of getting well if anything goes wrong. However, selecting the right health insurance policy requires a lot of planning and research, which can be quite confusing and daunting. In this post, we will discuss the things to keep in mind before buying a health insurance policy. With increasing healthcare costs, getting a health insurance policy as early as possible is gaining importance.

1. You must have an individual health cover even if you have a corporate group health cover

Having an individual health insurance cover is important because no matter how good your corporate group health insurance plans are, the moment you leave the job or retire, your company may want to withdraw the benefits or may decide to leave other family members out of the coverage. You don’t want this to happen, so you need to always think ahead. Investing in an individual health cover for yourself and your family is a great way to ensure that everything could be handled in the event of a crisis.

2. Maternity Benefits

The health insurance plans you choose must offer maternity coverage. It will help in managing the increasing expenses associated with pregnancy. Before buying a health insurance policy from any service provider, you need to ascertain of the following key points:

The waiting period valid for claiming maternity expenses
The sub-limit
Whether the policy covers outpatients expenses
Is there any exclusion related to the health cover?

The mentioned points are critical to remember to ensure that you get the maximum benefits.

3. Choose the right amount as ‘sum insured’

This is the most critical aspect of choosing health insurance plans. Keeping today’s price in mind, you need to choose a ‘sum insured.’ If yours is a small family residing in a small city, then your aim of health cover should be ranging from 3-5 lakhs. However, if you live in a metropolitan city, where daily expenses are rather high, you should not go for any cover that ranges below 5 lakhs. Most importantly, if you think that your existing plan doesn’t offer much, instead of buying a new plan, you can port the existing plan. With porting, your current plan gets transferred to a new plan of your choice.

4. Buy as early as possible

Just like life insurance, if you buy health insurance when you have started to earn, it will be more beneficial. According to experts, you are advised to buy a health cover before you turn 40, else you may be deprived of several cost benefits, among other aspects.

A health insurance cover will help you the most during medical emergencies. So you should do your research before buying one.

Tags: health insurance, insurance, life cover, medical insurance

About the Author

Bibhuranjan Editorial Officer, technofaq.org I'm an avid tech enthusiast at heart. I like to mug up on new and exciting developments on science and tech and have a deep love for PC gaming. Other hobbies include writing blog posts, music and DIY projects.