Types of Health Insurance Plans

Rising health issues due to irregular eating habits and unhealthy lifestyle and an increasing healthcare cost can burn a big hole in one’s pockets. To avoid that one should purchase a health insurance plan. Insurance companies have different health insurance plans that suit an individual’s needs. Below mentioned are some of the basic plans that most of the companies offer.

1. Individual Health Insurance Plan

Individual Health Insurance Plan is a type of health insurance that covers health expenses of an insured individual. These policies pay for surgical and hospitalisation expenses of an insured individual till the cover limit is reached. The premium for an individual plan is decided on the basis of medical history and the age of the individual buying the plan.

2. Family floater Health Insurance Plan

If a person wants to buy health insurance for his entire family (spouse, children and parents) in a single plan, then he should go for a Family Floater Policy. Any family member covered under the policy can claim in case of hospitalisation and surgical expenses. Like Individual Health Insurance Plan one has to pay a premium for family floater policy. The premium for family floater policy is determined based on the age of the eldest member under the coverage of the policy.

3. Group Health Cover

Group Health Insurance plans are bought by an employer for his employees. The premium in group insurance is lower than individual health insurance policy. Group health plans are usually standardised in nature and offer the same benefits to all employees.

4. Senior Citizen Health Insurance

At old age, health issues arise that involve expensive treatments. In order to meet such high medical cost, insurance companies have designed special health insurance plans for senior citizens. These plans provide cover to anyone from the age of 65 and above. Generally, the premium is higher in the case of senior citizen health insurance plan as compared to other policies.

5. Critical Illness Health Cover

Critical Illness Policy covers the expenses involved in treating the life-threatening diseases like a tumour, permanent paralysis etc. These policies usually pay a lump sum amount to insured person on the diagnosis of serious diseases covered in the policy document. Unlike other policies, Individual Health Insurance and Family Floater Policy, hospitalisation is not required, only the diagnosis of the disease is enough to claim the benefits.

6. Super Top-Up Policy

Super Top-Up Plans offer an additional coverage over the regular policy that can help to increase the amount of sum insured. The Super Top-Up Policy can be used only after the sum insured of one’s regular policy is exhausted.
For example, if a person has a regular health plan of Rs 3 lakh and a Top-Up plan of Rs 5 lakh. If there is a claim for Rs 5 lakh, then the existing medical policy will pay a claim of Rs 3 lakh and remaining claimed amount of Rs 2 lakh will be covered by the Super Top-Up policy.

Conclusion:

Health insurance provides financial assistance for non-anticipated medical emergencies. Every individual has different medical needs. Some may need individual health insurance to cover his own medical cost or one would prefer to take a family floater policy to cover medical expenses of his family members in a single policy. Super Top-Up Policy acts as a supplementary policy to the regular/ existing health policy of the insured. Thus, a person should select a health insurance plan after considering his medical needs and requirement.

Click here to know the common mistakes made by the people while buying term insurance plans.