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Health insurance: Should you take add-on covers

ANYONE who has fallen ill and seen their health insurance come to their financial rescue will never tire of telling you how it saved the day. Yet when you review your own policy, you are bound to sometimes wish that you could tweak it a little to accommodate your unique needs.

Health insurance: Should you take add-on covers

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Anuj Gulati

ANYONE who has fallen ill and seen their health insurance come to their financial rescue will never tire of telling you how it saved the day. Yet when you review your own policy, you are bound to sometimes wish that you could tweak it a little to accommodate your unique needs. Perhaps you wish the coverage would go beyond hospitalisation and also include your regular trips to the doctor for your little one who keeps falling prey to the ‘flu’. Or you may simply wish you could roll your health and accident policy into one, without any adverse impact on the cost and perhaps even receive a discount. The good news is that a number of such customisations to your basic health insurance policy are available – in the form of add-ons.

Enhancement of no-claim bonuses

Most health insurance policies reward you for staying in good health in the form of no claim bonus. For example, some companies offer about 10% per year without any claim; this can be cumulated but runs up against a cap at the end of five consecutive years. Insurance companies now enable you to avail a larger bonus for not claiming on your base policy via an add-on. So, for instance, there are companies that will offer you a no-claim bonus of 50% in addition to the standard 10%, which increases your total cover by a robust 60% in just a year.

Cashless OPD

With the insidious increase in the incidence of viral and bacterial infections, vector-borne diseases and recurring lifestyle-related ailments, trips to the doctor are becoming more frequent. The cost of each of these routine visits may seem humble in isolation when compared to hospitalisation bills however they often snowball to huge amounts. While basic health cover is extremely necessary to take care of expenses incurred towards medical treatments due to less common hospitalisations, add-ons covering OPD expenses help ensuring peace of mind for routine expenses that are far more frequent. These usually cover not only doctor’s consultancy fees but prescribed diagnostic tests and pharmacy bills as well. In fact, there are certain products available that have begun to offer a cashless OPD experience at a select network of medical centres in certain cities.

Accident insurance

Personal accident insurance cover is a convenient add-on, which effectively combines two policies – health insurance and accident insurance – into one, thus delivering not only cost benefits but greater convenience too. Just as in the case of a regular accident insurance plan, the add-on entitles the insured to avail cover for permanent total disablement and accidental death. In the case of an add-on, the scope of coverage is usually in fixed multiple of the sum insured of the policy.

Air ambulance facility

In an effort to keep up with the specialisations in medical treatment, which sometimes result in the best treatment being available far beyond one’s city limits, the insurance sector offers to cover the cost of air ambulances. Availing this add-on ensures that you reach the recommended medical facility of your choice not only expeditiously but with all the requisite medical care at your disposal too.

It’s all about you

The broad message for customers is that they do not have to settle for ‘one-size-fits-all’ policies of the past. Add-ons provide perfect scope for tailoring products to suit the needs of the insured.

The writer is MD & CEO, Religare Health Insurance Company Ltd. The views expressed in this article are his own

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