Buying The Right Health Insurance Plan: Know The Variants And How They Work!

When it comes to the features and benefits, the health insurance plans have a lot of differences. It is therefore important to make an informed decision while choosing a health insurance plan to make it work for you in the right manner. The structure, nomenclature and the definitions of the plan could be standardised and largely be same but in terms of benefits, there could be differences. And remember, each such difference leads to variation in premium. So, to start looking for the best health insurance plan would not serve the purpose, rather try to find the right plan that meets your requirement.

- Ashwini Kumar Sharma

Irdai had recently mandated insurance companies to offer short-term health plans that will cover hospitalization expenses related to treatment of Covid-19. This will help individuals buy specific health cover for meeting hospital costs due to coronavirus. Both Corona Kavach Policy and Corona Rakshak Policy are health insurance plans meant for Covid-19 related hospital expenses. However, Covid-19 are meant to supplement your health insurance coverage and are not a replacement. Having a health insurance plan is imminent to save oneself from rising medical costs and protecting your savings.

As needs are different and varied, looking for the best health plan doesn’t hold good. Needs of young couples without kids will be different from those who are middle-aged and with grown up children. Similarly, those nearing 60 will have other requirements. There is no ‘Free Size’ when it comes to insurance buying.

Level one differentiation

The first basic differentiation arises with availability of plainvanilla health insurance plan offering the most basic benefits and an advanced or a loaded version of the health insurance plan by the same insurer.

In the advanced version which may go by various names such as exclusive, gold, platinum, premium, there could be several extras. For example, sum insured (SI) could be allowed up to Rs 25 lakh or higher as against a cap of Rs 3/5 lakh in basic version. Even the claim of pre-existing disease that are typically allowed after 48 months could be allowed after 36 months. There could be daily cash benefit and ambulance costs included in such loaded versions.