4 Things You Shouldn’t Ignore While Buying Maternity Plans

While the initial anxiety parents may face will take days to ease, the one condition you need not worry about are the hospitalization expenses during the delivery time if you or your spouse is covered under maternity insurance. You will wonder knowing the fact that you can’t claim for maternity benefits until you serve the waiting period of 2-6 years.

While there are thousands of other factors that a couple considers at the time they conceive to ensure a healthy pregnancy, you can’t deny the cost involved with the entire process. However, some of the health insurance policies also cover maternity benefits, either it is not enough or you have to pursue lots of terms and conditions before claiming. So having a separate maternity insurance plan is adequate. Contributing to the rapid rise in medical inflation, a normal delivery in a reputed hospital in a metro city could range between Rs. 70,000 to 1 lakh. Well, not to mention, you’ll definitely get hiccups knowing the C-section bill. This figure forces you to plan your maternity expenses before it is too late. Here is why you need an adequate maternity cover that helps you prepare for this new phase.

Maternity Insurance: The Importance

Embracing the parenthood in a planned manner is what shows your sincerity and concern. With the prices of medical treatments soaring high, you must prepare for all expected and unexpected expenses. As pregnancy is the most crucial phase, possibilities of any emergency may drain your savings or you will have to end up compromising on health care. With the best medical policy that offers maternity benefits, you can deal with the odd situation that may arise out of an emergency. This reason is enough for adding a maternity plan in your health checklist.

As you already know that most of the medical health plans do not cover pregnancy costs and are of no use at the time you need to deliver a baby. Also with the rising health treatment expenses, adding to 15%-18% more each year, it will take no time to leave you bankrupt and the hospitalization charges are expected to be double in the near future. Health insurance policies are the only options to remain safe now.

Considering the importance of a maternity plan and how you can deal with the the most decisive phase of your life effortlessly, we’ve prepared a list of few things to adhere to while buying a plan. Here we go:

What All Are Covered in a Maternity Plan

As per IRDA’s guidelines on maternity benefits, a plan covers hospitalization expenses, post-childbirth, medical termination of pregnancy and pre/post-natal costs. The broad spectrum of maternity coverage includes:

Benefits	Cover
Hospital Benefits including pre-hospitalisation cover up to 30 days and post-hospitalisation expense up to 60 days.	Yes
Pre/post natal expenses, normal and caesarean delivery expenses, post delivery complications of the mother.	Yes
Room charges, surgeon fee, nursing charges, medicine cost, ambulance, doctor consultation fee.	Yes
Newborn baby cover from day 1 to 90 days. If the baby is diagnosed with any critical ailments or congenital disorder.	Yes
During pregnancy medical expenses	No
Expenses of pre-delivery medical tests, blood test if the patient is not hospitalised.	No

Know the Waiting Period and Sub-limits

Health insurance policies require the policyholder to serve a defined waiting period to cover any specific illness. Maternity insurance is no exception. The insured needs to serve a waiting period of 2-6 years before making any claim. However, quite obviously, it may vary insurer to insurer. Hereby, it is advisable to buy a maternity plan as early as possible, even if you’re not planning to conceive anytime soon. However, there are plans where one has to serve only 90 days’ period of waiting period. But yes, be in more or less, you’ll have to serve it.

Premium

Premium is the most important asset of health insurance policies. Be it mediclaim or a maternity plan, you will have to pay the premium to avail the benefits when needed, even if you don’t use it. Here the premium is slightly higher than the other health plans. However, we believe you wouldn’t mind paying little more to get a coverage for other huge expenses that may leave you broke.

Other Perks

You shouldn’t make pregnancy cover the sole criteria at the time of buying a medical insurance plan.

Sometimes, your employer also provides health insurance with maternity benefits. If you have one, compare the benefits you can avail and if these suffice your need, don’t buy an additional plan. In case you already have a heal plan with maternity benefit, you can make claim for the employee owned plan and earn NO Claim Bonus from your own policy for not claiming the insurance. This way you can avail double benefits, maternity and NCB, an additional bonus on premium.

There is another benefit. With a separate plan, you can cover the incurred amount in case you exceed the cover offered by your company. Here comes your individual plan in the picture and helps you in making a claim for the exceeded amount.

You can also create a maternity fund which can be saved as FDs or liquid mutual funds that you can use whenever you required.

Always bear in mind that no insurer will cover you if you’re already pregnant and requires you to serve waiting period, depending on company terms. So, it is important to purchase a plan on time.

Conclusion

Today’s generation is proactive enough that they plan their finances beforehand. However, sky-high maternity expenses bind the couples to search for options to bear this financial burden. Hence, many Indian insurers have come up with alluring health insurance policies with adequate maternity cover, which has resolved this problem to some extent. Still, we advise that you plan your family accordingly, keeping your financial state at a gauge. Also, while buying such plans, always consider your priorities and requirements and do not forget the above mentioned tips.