The Best Health Insurance Plan Is The One That Meets Your Needs

Here's How To Choose One

- Sanjiv Puri

It is not necessary that the best plan for one person will also be the best plan for someone else or for everyone. The concept of ‘one-size’ for all doesn’t exist in health insurance. Who would not like to get hold of the best of things in life? This, however, may not work in the space of financial products, including when it comes to choosing the best health insurance plan. The structure, nomenclature and its definitions could be standardized and may largely be same but in terms of benefits attached to them, there could be differences. And remember, each such difference leads to variation in premium. So, to start looking for the ‘best’ health plan would not serve the purpose. Try to understand the way a health plan works and about their features, to buy the best that suits you.

The first differentiation

The first basic differentiation arises with availability of plain-vanilla health insurance plan offering the most basic features, benefits and an advanced or a loaded version of the health insurance plan by the same insurer. What the advanced version offers and its cost-benefit equation, needs to be understood by buyer. Most of the time, buyers may be made to buy the advanced version while they could have met the requirement from the basic version.

In the advanced version which may go by various names such as exclusive, gold, platinum, premium etc, there could be several extras. For example, sum insured (SI) could be allowed up to Rs 25 lakhs or higher than against a cap of Rs 3/5 lakh in basic version. Even the claim of pre-existing disease that is 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. These may not be the primary requirement for someone aged around 30 or lower and the basic plan could serve him well. Over time, advanced version from same insurer could have been bought.