Tips to Choose the Right Health Insurance Plan for your Family

While it is impossible to plan when to get sick, it is quite easy to remain prepared to tackle the financial liabilities that come with it. But looking for a health insurance policy doesn’t come across as easy. However, with complete awareness of health insurance terms and things to look for in an ideal plan, you can undoubtedly end up making a perfect choice.

Tips to Choose Right Health Insurance Policy

While buying a health insurance policy for your family you should consider the tips mentioned below in order to choose the right one according to your needs.

1. Prefer floater plan over individual plan

If you are buying for your family, you should consider buying a floater plan instead of buying individual plans for all the members of the family. Under a floater plan, all the members of the company would get covered under a huge sum insured and lesser premium amount.

2. Right Policy Coverage

Choose health insurance that provides you coverage for a wide range of problems and expenses such as daycare expenses, transportation expenses, pre and post hospitalisation expenses, etc. In case you are buying for your family, you should check whether the policy meets the needs of each member either children, you, or your parents. Try to choose a plan which provides facilities as per your requirements.

3. Flexibility to add new family members

There should be flexibility to add new family members, if you are buying a family plan or a floater plan, you may want to add your children as members.

4. Read Waiting Time Period Clause

It is one of the most important aspects one should consider buying a floater health insurance plan, there is a waiting time clause which you should read before buying one such plan. You can claim insurance and other benefits only after a certain point of time as mentioned in the waiting time period clause of your policy.

5. Co-Payment Clause

Companies offer a co-payment option in which at the time of medical emergency you will be asked to pay some percentage of expenses through your pocket and the remaining would be covered by the insurer. You should consider a policy without a co-payment facility but with co-payment, your premium amount would be comparatively lesser. So choose the plan according to your needs and affordability.

6. Lifetime Renewability

You can buy a health insurance policy for a limited period of time only, there is no lifetime health insurance policy available in the market, you would require to renew it after every year. But you can consider buying a plan which has a lifetime renewability option so that you wouldn't need to buy another policy.

7. Network Hospital

Companies have a list of their network hospitals from which you can claim cashless facilities at the time of hospitalisation. In non-network hospitals you would not get a cashless facility you will have to pay from your pocket. Consider buying a policy with a huge network of hospitals.

8. Claim Settlement Ratio

It is the ratio of claims filed by the policyholders to the claims settled by the company. You should consider buying from a company with a high claim settlement ratio i.e. above or equal to 90%. So that there will be lesser chances of your claim not getting settled.

Disclaimer: This article is issued in the general public interest and meant for general information purposes only. Readers are advised not to rely on the contents of the article as conclusive in nature and should research further or consult an expert in this regard.