Guide To Increase Health Insurance Policy Coverage

Healthcare in 2022 is something one cannot avoid spending on. Skipping on it can mean throwing caution to the wind. It is a situation no one wishes to get caught up in. While a situation where you aren’t prepared can eat into your savings, it also may lead you towards a debt trap. In these unpredictable situations, a health insurance policy is what helps alleviate financial worries, especially when medical issues come into play. In today’s world, there are several health insurance plans and each of them is designed for a specific category of people. It is crucial to make the right choice and ensure that appropriate insurance coverage is available. While several plans can be opted for, selecting the right coverage is also essential. One critical step in selecting suitable coverage is choosing an adequate amount of sum assured. This sum assured is the maximum amount that the insurance company compensates for. When you select a plan, you need to buy it keeping in mind future coverage requirements. But that isn’t always possible, especially in the case of new policy buyers.

Simple Ways to Enhance Your Policy’s Coverage

If you are contemplating enhancing your health insurance coverage, these are some effective ways to go about it.

1. Top-up and Super top-up Covers

Top-up covers, also known as catastrophe plans, are insurance policies that help in enhancing the insurance coverage by offering additional insurance covers. These plans can either be bought as standalone or in combination with an existing insurance policy. One advantage of buying a top-up cover with your existing insurance plan is that you need not serve all the policy prerequisites, such as the waiting period for the entire amount of sum insured, but only for the incremental amount of coverage. Thus, it keeps your existing coverage active and only requires you to buy incremental insurance cover. When buying top-up plans, you must remember that these policies have high deductibles. Therefore, before the insurance policy pays for the expense, you would be required to shoulder a hefty amount. Hence, it is best used in combination with your existing insurance cover, making it an effective way to enhance the sum insured. Top-up plans are of two types — standard top-up plans and super top-up plans. Standard top-up policies can be used in a single claim when the claim amount exceeds the base sum assured. For a second instance, it shall not be available. Super top-up plans, on the other hand, are an extension of the standard top-up covers. Where a top-up plan can be used only for a single claim, a super top-up policy is available for multiple claims. Thus, even for a subsequent hospitalization, a super top-up cover that remains unutilized during the previous instance can be used. They can come in handy in case of multiple claims during one policy period and are useful to enhance the coverage of health insurance plans for family. *

2. Increasing the Existing Sum Insured

When renewing a policy, it is important to evaluate whether the coverage is sufficient based on the current medical inflation levels. Hence, almost every insurance company will allow the option to increase the sum assured during its renewal. If you choose to increase the existing sum insured, your premium will slightly bump up. However, your medical needs for the future shall remain insured for a marginal increase in the premium. In addition to that, you need not face waiting periods when increasing your sum insured, as opposed to buying a fresh insurance policy. *

3. Selecting a Comprehensive Health Plan

A comprehensive policy is an insurance plan that offers coverage for a wide array of medical treatments. These policies not only include protection for the costs of hospitalization, but also for other types of costs that may be required. Pre- and post-hospitalization cost, organ donation charges, domiciliary cover, coverage for alternative forms of treatment (AYUSH cover), maternity cover, outpatient treatment cover, cover for ambulance charges, personal accident cover, and critical illness cover are some features that are covered in a comprehensive plan. *

4. Choosing the Right Health Insurance Riders

Like motor insurance plans have add-ons to customize their coverage, health insurance policies provide riders with an increase in their coverage. These riders are optional and depend on the insurance company’s offering. Further, health insurance riders are available at an additional premium. However, they have far greater benefits when compared with their cost. A few riders like hospital cash rider, critical illness rider, maternity cover rider, an accident disability rider, and waiver of room rent rider can help to increase the coverage of your policy. While the premiums increase when you opt for riders in your insurance coverage, you can make use of a health insurance premium calculator to estimate the impact on your overall premium rates.

Over to You

Using this comprehensive guide, you can see that it can be a straightforward process to enhance your coverage. While medical costs are increasing day by day, enhancing the coverage can help you keep yourself and your family protected at all times. * *Standard T&C Apply  Insurance is the subject matter of solicitation. For more details on benefits, exclusions, limitations, terms and conditions, please read the sales brochure/policy wording carefully before concluding a sale.