10 Smart Tips to Choose the Best Health Insurance Plan

How to Choose Health Insurance in India?

Check out 10 amazing tips to choose the best health insurance policy in India:

1. Go for the Right Coverage

While buying a health insurance policy, checking the coverage offered under a plan is important. By coverage, we mean the medical expenses that will be covered under your policy, such as hospitalization expenses, ambulance charges, day care expenses, maternity expenses, etc.

Analyze the health needs of your family & yourself and accordingly, choose a plan that offers you the right coverage. Do not go for a plan that offers way more coverage than you need as it will increase your premium. Instead, you can customize your plan by opting for riders as per your needs.

2. Prefer Family Floater Plans

If you are buying insurance for the entire family, go for a family floater plan instead of buying individual health plans for each member. Family floater plans are more affordable than buying separate policies for each member. Moreover, not everyone gets ill at the same time and thus, the sum insured available on a floater basis can be used by any family member as per requirement.

3. Choose the Right Sum Insured Amount

At the time of purchasing medical insurance, make sure to choose a sum insured that you actually need. If you go for a higher sum insured, it will increase your premium immensely. On the contrary, if you go for a sum insured lower than you need, it will be insufficient to cover your medical expenses fully and you will end up paying from your own pocket during claim settlement.

Alternatively, you can also go for a basic plan with a lower sum insured and additionally, buy a top-up insurance plan. The top-up plan will provide you with additional coverage in case the sum insured of your basic plan gets exhausted.

4. Choose a Plan with Lifetime Renewability

Make sure to select a health plan that comes with lifetime renewability. This is essential because you will most likely require a health insurance policy during your old age. But unfortunately, buying health insurance in your old age is difficult and expensive. If your existing plan comes with lifetime renewability, you can continue with the same plan even in your old age.

5. Go for a High Claim Settlement Ratio

While buying health insurance, go for an insurance company that enjoys a high claim settlement ratio or CSR. The CSR is the ratio of the total claims settled with the total claims received. Thus, a higher CSR indicates a higher chance of your claim getting settled.

6. Check the Network of Empanelled Hospitals

At the time of purchasing medical insurance, choose an insurance company that has a wide range of network hospitals. These hospitals offer cashless hospitalization services and do not require you to pay the hospital bill during discharge. Therefore, you should go for a plan by an insurance company that has network hospitals in your neighbourhood.

7. Choose Plans with Lower PED Waiting Period

Another important thing to consider while choosing a health plan is the pre-existing disease (PED) waiting period. The PED waiting period is the time period after which the insured can raise a claim for pre-existing diseases. Usually, the PED waiting period varies from 2 to 4 years, depending on the plan. Thus, you must opt for a health plan with a lower PED waiting period.

8. Prefer Plans with No Sub-limits/ Co-payments

At the time of choosing a health policy, look for any sub-limits or co-payment clauses. While sub-limits refer to the coverage limit on individual covers, co-payment is the share of the claim amount that you agree to pay during claim settlement. To evade any financial burden during claim settlement, try to pick a plan that does not have any sub-limit or co-payment clause.

9. Compare Multiple Health Plans

One of the best ways to pick the right health policy is to compare different plans based on their coverage, benefits and quotes. Comparison helps you to find the plan that offers the best coverage within your budget. Therefore, make sure to compare health insurance policies online on websites like Policybazaar.com to get the best deal.

10. Check the Reputation of the Insurance Company

Before you purchase a health plan, make sure to check the reputation of the insurance company. Doing so can help you get an idea of the after-sales services offered by the insurance company. You can check reviews of the insurance company online to get a clear idea of the services offered.

In a Nutshell

Buying health insurance is an important decision as it can help you prevent a financial crisis in the event of a medical emergency. In case you are not sure how to go about it, keep the above-mentioned tips in mind to choose the best health insurance policy in India.