How to buy Health Insurance?

Health Insurance policy protects your savings from draining into medical expenses. Health insurance offers you with dual benefits, providing medical coverage as well as tax benefits under Section 80D of Income Tax 1961. With increasing medical costs, it has become essential to buy the health insurance policy.

The primary benefit of a health insurance plan is that it protects you from high spending on high medical costs. You get cashless claim wherein you do not have to pay the entire amount in case of hospitalization and even avail free preventive checkups and more.

A rider is an add-on benefit to the health insurance plan to enhance the base coverage. Some popular riders available in the health insurance sector are Critical Illness rider, Maternity cover, OPD cover, Hospital Cash benefit and Health checkup cover etc.

The waiting period in health insurance refers to the defined period of time by the insurer to cover pre-existing diseases. During this period no claim is accepted by the insurer in case of sudden hospitalization. For example, if the waiting period is 2 years, then no claim will be accepted within this time.

In case no claim is made on the health insurance during the policy tenure then a discount on the base premium is given known as a no-claim bonus.

A medical condition or health-related problem that exists before purchasing the health policy is known as pre-existing disease or condition. Almost all the insurance providers are quite reluctant to offer coverage for pre-existing illnesses as it becomes expensive for them. That is why insurance companies prefer medical checkup for policy applicants to know their health status. Therefore, while choosing a health policy, you also need to look through the waiting period for covering such illnesses.

While selecting a health insurance plan you need to check on few points that includes Coverage limit, Sum assured, entry age, co-payment clause, inclusions and exclusions in the policy, waiting period, no-claim bonus etc. Make your choice after comparing various plans according to the parameters mentioned above.