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4 Things to Know before buying Health Insurance by Medimanage.com

 

The newly married Khans watched sadly as their neighbors struggled to raise money required to pay for the treatment of their son, who had met with a terrible accident. Haunted by the plight of their neighbors, the Khans made a silent promise of never having to be party to a similar situation.

The first thing that came to their minds was the need for a health Insurance! And rightly so, as health insurance is an excellent way of ensuring that in terms of medical emergencies you are never found wanting in the financial aspect of things. So the Khans set about on their quest of purchasing the best health Insurance policy that would suit their budget and needs.

We decided to help the Khans and came up with a few ‘must knows’ before buying health Insurance that everyone including the Khans who are buying Health Insurance for the first time should have knowledge about,

• Hospitalization:

Health Insurance in India today is synonymous with the term ‘Hospitalization’, meaning health insurance covers only hospitalization induced charges such as those of the booking the hospital bed, the consultant doctor’s charges, the surgeons charges (in case of surgery), cost of the operation theater (Again in case of surgery).

Along with hospitalization, health Insurance also covers pre hospitalization charges such as the expenses incurred up till 30 days prior to hospitalization and post hospitalization charges i.e. charges incurred upto a period of 60 days after hospitalization.

For the insurer to be able to claim these charges from the insurance company, there are certain clauses in place, such as the stay at the hospital should be for a minimum time period of 24 hours, the hospital itself should be registered and have a certain minimum number of beds present because only then will the hospitalization be covered!

• From who to buy – Company, agent or broker?

Once the Khans were clear of what costs their health insurance covered, they were a bit confused regarding whom to Buy Health Insurance from!

Their choices were to either buy it from the company, the agent or the broker. If a mediclaim policy is purchased from the health insurance company, then it will require the insurance buyer to interact a lot with them- meaning a lot of time and resources are spent by the insurance buyer, moreover there will be no issued reminders regarding the renewal date and so on, making the buying of a mediclaim policy from a company a tedious process.

Next is the agent who is hired by an Insurance company to sell their policies, while this is good from one point of view wherein he knows all the details of the policies and can serve you well, there is also room for favoritism on his part towards his company since he gets a commission for every policy that he sells!

Finally we come to the broker, who according to us, is an apt choice if you are looking to buy health Insurance for the first time, since the broker sells policies of many Insurance companies and can match you up with the best policy that suits your budget and needs, providing you with a comparison between different policies. What more, since the broker gets the same commission from all Insurance companies that he represents, there is no room for malpractice due to favoritism.

• Exclusions

Exclusions are medical conditions that are not covered under your health insurance policy such as specific diseases mentioned in the particular policy such as cosmetic surgery, dental surgery (it is paid for only if it is required in case of an injury or disease), mental illness, STD’s, alternative therapies such as Homeopathy, naturopathy, yoga etc.

Other exclusions would be the diagnostic charges incurred at a hospital such as X-ray and lab charges, treatment for pregnancy and pre-existing diseases (diseases present, prior to purchasing the policy) which are covered after a specified waiting period generally of 2 or 4 years. More on 4 Things to Know before buying Health Insurance by Medimanage.com

About the Author

Medimanage Health Insurance India

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