Personal Vs. Group Health Insurance

Most of the salaries people think that the corporate group health insurance policy from the employer is sufficient and there is no need to buy another policy by putting in own money. But industry experts believe this is a incorrect thinking.

This is because personal medical cover is important when you change your job but also the current poor economic conditions; which is causing companies to cut down employee benefits due to which health insurance provided by the company may not be sufficient. This cutting down of benefits is seen across the sector.

According to the insurance broking firms, between the year 2011-2012, nearly 70% employees has changed their health care plan due to increased spend in healthcare costs. And this trend is going to continue in the next few years as well. Policies are now slowly increasing changing from employer funded model to employee funded model from parents point of view.

Senior citizens face problems in buying individual mediclaim. Normally while buying a policy, existing ailments are covered only for 4 years. But in case of employers health insurance schemes this is not the case. And this is the reason why group cover is attaractive for many people. But since your parents cover is ending, you’ll have to fulfil this gap.

Individual health cover benefits not only during your job change but also when claim amount exceeds more than INR 3-5 Lacs. Normally group policy has sum assured of INR 3-5 Lacs. So when you change job, your cover ends. Industry experts suggests that before resigning from your current job employee should enable/apply for portability option and buy retail policy from the same insurance company. Putting it in a simpler way, by doing this an employee can continue with the insurance benefits. For increasing your security, you can then purchase indemnity health cover.

Indemnity Cover:

Insurance experts recommend indemnity cover for employees aged 45 years and more. These people can continue with their insurance cover even after their retirement. Such kind of policy is very common for reimbursing the hospitalization cost.

For family of four in metro cities, the highly recommended policy should be of minimum 10 Lacs and buying family floater policy is the best for this section of people.

Top-Up Insurance Plan:

If you need a family cover of more than INR 10 Lacs, then you can buy indemnity cover of 5 Lacs and for the remaining 5 Lacs, you can buy top up plan which is the cheapest insurance policy. It is mainly for the people who cannot bear the expenses of the whole policy cover of all the members of the family. Top up plan works like an add-on for an existing cover. This is applicable only when your claim sum is higher than your insured sum. Experts also recommend considering all possible options while planning for a top-up plan such as high cost treatments, prolonged illnesses, different types of hospitalization, possibility of one member getting recurring health problems.

Also read why life cover is important