How a Family Floater Health Plan Can Be The Saviour of Your Family?

You might question a single health policy that covers your entire family. If your requirement matches with this or you are looking for a more comprehensive health plan, Family Floater Health plan is what you can opt for. The best part is that you can buy a family health plan for parents as your entire family is covered in a single plan.

Health insurance companies have been working for ages to introduce a health plan, which covers the entire family. By introducing this plan, complete family health-care arrangements are made and you can insure your dear ones within a single policy or with a single premium.

The Salient Features of a Family Floater Plan:

• As it states, this plan means to cover your entire family and there is a single sum assured for the entire family.
• The family floater health insurance policy can be used by any family member up to the sum assured, for instance, if four members of a family come under family floater plan for the cover amount of 10 lakh, all members can claim up to the assured amount.
• Usually, a floater plan covers prime insured, spouse and kids. However, some plans offer health coverage to the extended family too.

Family Floater vs Individual Plan

As compared to individual health plans, family floater policies are more beneficial. They provide health benefits to all family members, unlike an individual policy. With a single policy only, you can get separate coverage for each family member. Also, one can avail this plan at a reasonable cost. If you buy an individual plan and you want to cover your aged parent, you cannot as only your spouse and kids will be covered. But with floater plan, you can buy health cover for your old parents as well and there is no better option to get a family health plan for parents than this. Now you will not have to compromise the quality health care due to a financial crisis.

Advantages of Family Floater Health Insurance

Family floater plan has its own perks:

• If you have a family floater health insurance plan you can cover your family with adequate health coverage for medical expenses, hospitalisation costs, doctor consultation fee, room charge, ambulance fee, surgeon fee, anaesthesia cost, medicine or drug cost or other medical dues arising out of illness, accidental hospitalisation. Some policies also offered free health-check-up facility for all the policy members.
• Now you are not required to own multiple health policies for each member of your family, as a floater plan will cover your spouse, children, parents and/ or sometimes, in-laws as well. It is greatly affordable and offers flexible insurance services.
• It is flexible in nature, which is missing in an individual health plan. Moreover, if one of the family members falls sick, you can use the entire family’s cover on one member for his/her treatment. In case of the demise of a family member, the rest can continue the plan with a defined sum assured. The cover provided is always an extensive one.
• Buying a family floater plan and paying the premium for the same, you can avail the tax benefit under Section 80D of Indian Income Tax Act. You can also double the tax benefits by paying the premium for your old age parents.

Coverage Limit

When it comes to the coverage of members to a plan, spouse and children are covered by default. Some plans extend the coverage to dependent parents or in-law, siblings etc. You can select the premium based on the age of the eldest member of your family which is a member of this plan.

Let’s See How Does the Plan Works

To understand its functioning, what  it does and doesn’t  cover, let’s take an example.

Mrs. Komal Sharma has covered her family with a family floater plan with Rs 10 lakh cover. The plan covers Komal, her husband and two children. During the policy tenure she diagnosed with Malaria and due to her severe condition, she was hospitalised. Her treatment cost around Rs. 2 lakh. She claimed the amount from her insurer against the floater plan and got reimbursed after submitting required documents and proof. Now, she is left with Rs. 8 lakh for the remainder of the year. The remaining amount can be used by all four members.

In case, any member avails the claim that is equal to the total sum insured then the same amount would not be offered for the rest of the family members.

Tips to Choose the Adequate Family Floater Policy

While choosing the right family floater plan, you need to be attentive towards your family’s needs. Additionally, you should read some of pointers listed below that you should consider while selecting a floater plan.

• Sum insured: Even at the initial stage, you should carefully select the sum insured so that if one member avails a large claim, there should be enough left for the other family members.
• Risk factor: If you want to add your senior citizen parents, bear in mind that you will be paying a higher premium because of the risk factor associated with their age. However, chances are that an elderly person may benefit the most from the policy. So, it is advisable to take a separate policy if your parents enter their old age.

Terms and Conditions to Adhere

One should consider few conditions at the time purchasing family floater plan:

• Co-payment Option: Check if your health insurer offers co-payment option. Co-payment is when a policyholder pays a certain amount of total claim.
• Know the Deductibles: Deductible is the amount you pay voluntarily at the time of claim and the insurer pays the rest of the claim amount.
• Know the Capping Amount: Capping amount is also referred as room limit. It is the amount up to which your health insurer pays for the room charges if the patient is hospitalised.

Tangible Benefits:

• One single policy covers entire family, you need not maintain a separate policy to cover the health of your family members and enjoy hassle-free claim and renewals.
• In this policy, every member stays covered. In case there are unplanned high expenses, sufficient cover is available then as well.
• You can add or remove family members according to your convenience. Let’s say, you can add your newly born baby or if someone wants to discontinue, he/she can leave easily.
• Affordable: More or less, family floater plans are cheaper in terms of coverage and benefits as compared to a standalone health plan. However, in two scenarios, floater plan proves to be more expensive 1) If the age of the claimant is higher than the other family members’ or he/she has a poor medical history; 2) by accumulating no claim bonus for each claim free year, policyholders can make their individual policies cheaper.

A Word of Caution

In individual health insurance, if you don’t file a claim for the year, you are eligible for no claim bonus, either your sum assured will be increased with no extra premium or your renewal premium will be reduced. This bonus may range from 20% to 50%. Likewise, if four members of your family don’t make claim, they are eligible for separate bonus. But in a family floater plan, even if a single claim is made, the rest of the members are no longer eligible to obtain a bonus. However, that doesn’t restrain many policyholders to opt for this plan just because the overall premium is still comparatively less. Moreover, you aren’t required to maintain separate health policies for each We can imagine that it is quite annoying to remember the renewal dates for each policy. Isn’t it?

It is always recommended to buy a family floater plan at a younger age of all family members. The logic behind is, the premium is decided as per the age of the eldest person. Premium would go high considering the higher risk of claim made by the oldest person of your family.

Also, if you have a group insurance plan provided by the employer, don’t ignore having a separate health plan, as the offered coverage is not sufficient. In this case, you should compare cost of buying a new plan and if your pocket won’t allow it, a family floater plan may appear as a saviour by offering coverage at low cost. However, make sure it offers enough cover for your family and don’t cost much.

In most of the cases, family floater plans cover your children up to a defined age, usually 18 or 21. So, there is no point covering them for a certain age and then buying another plan separately.

This plan may not be  as helpful as you expected, if any of your family member has a serious medical illness. In this case, it is advisable to buy a separate health cover for them that meets all the requirements.

Not all floater plans offer life-long renewability option. Many of them limit the policy tenure at the age of 65, while some at 60 and 80. Unlike, floater plans, almost all individual health plans are renewable lifelong.

Conclusion

We all love and care about our family; it is our greatest asset and blessing. That’s the reason we go the extra mile to keep them safe. Even at times, we choose  the comfort of our  at the cost of our priorities. And this is the reason we slog for hours daily in a office or factory, to feed the family, provide comfort and securing their health tops the list.

When innumerable health insurers have introduced their plans online to make their products appealing, it becomes quite a tough job for you to find out the best deal which meets your requirements. Also, you can’t ignore your pocket and can’t go beyond the budget. So, the best option is to compare various family floater plans online by using insurance calculator. This way you’ll get options for various family health plans for parents as well. However, decision on whether to opt for an individual or family floater entirely depends on the minute study of the plan, benefits offered, price comparison and claim settlement process. And by blending them together, we can reach your desired health plan!

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