Can I Get Cancer Insurance for My Child?

Note that Indian insurers have not yet come up with specific cancer covers for children. Therefore, if you wish to avoid the financial stress of cancer treatment, you should invest in a comprehensive family floater policy. Notably, there are several specialized cancer plans for adults that allow the inclusion of a child under the coverage benefits. Let’s find out more about getting cancer insurance for a child in India.

Cancer Insurance for a Child in India

If you want to know whether you can get cancer insurance for your child, the answer is yes. This can be done in two ways. You can either get insurance cover for a child suffering from cancer by investing in critical illness riders along with child plans or adding your child to a family floater health insurance policy. 

Cancer insurance cover for children is only applicable from a particular age, mostly 90 days to 5 years. If your child is diagnosed with cancer before they reach the minimum entry age, you shall have to bear the cost of treatment till the time (s)he reaches the inclusionary age bracket.

Further, not all health insurance policies cover critical illnesses such as cancer. Therefore, make sure to choose a plan that has in-built critical illness protection or offers optional critical illness riders. Another important pointer is to ensure if the benefits under critical illness riders extend to your child or not. 

Family floater plans will cover childhood cancer treatment-related costs till the age of 25 years. If you find that your expenses are exceeding the sum insured level, you can choose to top-up the health insurance policy as and when required. 

The sum insured under such a policy should be significant enough to address the needs of each member covered. Remember that medical costs related to cancer can run to the tune of lakhs. Therefore, decide on a coverage amount only after careful consideration of the following:

• symptoms 

• stage of cancer diagnosed 

• age of your kid

• other medical conditions

• potential treatment, and hospitalization costs

• palliative care, and

• the number of members covered under the family floater 

Examples of Cancer Insurance Plans for a Child

* Disclaimer: Policybazaar does not endorse, rate, or recommend any particular insurer or insurance product offered by an insurer. 

Cancer Prevalence Among Children in India

The reason why cancer insurance for a child is so important is that India currently accounts for nearly 20% of childhood cancers across the globe. Over 50,000 children across the country are diagnosed with some form of cancer every year. Nearly half of those diagnosed do not have access to proper treatment or cannot afford the cost of it. As a result, cancer-related deaths are reported at large among children in India. 

Reports suggest that almost 70% of cancer cases in children are completely curable. However, less than half of these cases get the proper care and treatment necessary, indicating a huge gap between India’s public health system. The only barriers that restrict recovery are the cost of treatment and staggered awareness among the public about India’s healthcare systems. 

In Conclusion!

Cancer insurance can help alleviate these cost concerns significantly. Although there will be out-of-pocket expenses, the majority of treatment costs, hospitalization expenses, etc., will be borne by the health insurance cover for the child. Therefore, specialized pediatric cancer coverage should be made a priority in families that have a history of cancer.