Health Insurance Plan- A Guide To How Yoga Brings Down Premium Cost

Yoga helps in everything that is required for a happy and joyous life! Since its commencement in the year 2015, June 21st is celebrated as the international day of yoga all over the world. The day is celebrated to raise global awareness about the benefits of practicing yoga regularly. It helps you achieve all-around fitness of your mind and body by acting as a stress reliever and giving you inner peace, weight loss, improved immune system, etc. At the physical level, the methods consist of various yoga postures called ‘asanas’ that aim to keep the body healthy. And on the mental level, techniques like meditation and different breathing exercises bring calmness and discipline to the mind. It is one of the imperative habits that must be adapted to take care of our mind, body, and soul, all at once.

Especially during these trying times, when we are confined to our homes and there's a continuous flow of negative news coming in every day, adding to our anxiety, making us restless. Yoga is the best thing to adopt as a lifestyle habit in this current scenario. Moreover, the most alluring fact is that many people don’t know that yoga can help you reduce the cost of your health insurance plan and in addition offer wellness rewards.

Wellness benefits

As medical costs continue to rise, it is important to have an adequate health insurance plan but it’s equally important to be conscious about preventive healthcare, including keeping yourself fit. Following the guidelines issued by the IRDAI, the insurers now offer reward points and incentives to the customer who complies with the set criteria of wellness and preventative features. This feature pushes policyholders to maintain and improve their health especially during these unprecedented times.

Insurers can keep track of how well you manage your well-being with various smartphone applications that come with the tracking feature like steps taken in a day, sleep patterns, and so on. Other than that they can also examine if you follow a particular health regime like practicing yoga or participating in marathons etc. The criteria to earn wellness points differs from insurer to insurer. Further, as most of the insurance providers decide premiums based on the fitness of insurance buyers, you tend to pay a lower premium as compared to an unfit person. When you lead a healthy life you’re less vulnerable to claim your insurance as compared to an unhealthy individual.

What insurers are offering?

Many insurers have even started to offer lucrative discounts - ranging between 80 – 100 percent - on the renewal amount apart from a pool of other rewards and benefits. Of all the people buying health insurance plans in the months of March and April last year through Policybazaar, over 20% of people renewed their policies this year through wellness points. This shows how the mindset of people has changed towards adopting an active and healthy lifestyle. One such insurer is Aditya Birla that returns 100 percent premium to the customers if they achieve the required number of 'Activ Dayz' - one Activ Day means 10,000 steps a day, or any other specified physical activity. HDFC Ergo My Health Suraksha Plan also provides a discount of upto 10% on renewal premium if the policyholder burns total of 900 calories up to a maximum of 300 calories in one exercise session per day or records a minimum of 50,000 steps in a week subject to a maximum of 15,000 steps per day tracked through wearable device linked with their app.

Similarly, ICICI Lombard runs #DoTheDifficult wellness program that entails a host of benefits. Under the program, the customers can earn points by participating in marathons, walk-a-thons, or even by buying a gym, yoga or aerobics memberships or taking a Health risk assessment. Every point earned through the program is equivalent to 0.25 INR and the customers can redeem the accumulated points for carrying out OPD consultations or nutrition consultations. Another prominent insurer, Future Generali has recently come up with a wellness plan under which the customers can avail a flat 80 per cent discount on renewal provided no-claims are made through the policy in the previous year. The wellness plan operated by Bajaj Allianz General allows its customers to redeem the accumulated points for co-pay waiver at the time of claim or enhance the sum insured in case of no claim.

Max Bupa’s ReAssure health insurance plan also offers discounts to the customers for staying fit. Those walking a certain number of daily steps will be offered up to 30 percent discount on renewal premium. The steps are monitored by the Max Bupa Health Application. The product even comes with a ‘Booster Benefit’ that doubles the sum insured in just two claim-free years.

Avail no claim bonus

In addition to wellness rewards, yoga helps increase your immunity and improves your overall health which automatically means that you don’t tend to claim your insurance. As a result, you earn NCB for every claim-free year.

No claim bonus helps you to avail of increased health insurance coverage without paying an extra premium. The NCB bonus usually ranges from 10% up to the maximum of 50%-100%. Thus, by practicing yoga you not only keep yourself healthy but also can ensure sufficient health coverage at an affordable premium cost.