Finding optimum health insurance for senior citizens

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It’s rightly said as you grow older you become wiser. But as you grow old, you also become vulnerable to health risks. For Mumbai-based Kamal Rajan, it was working both ways. While he was getting wiser as he turned 35, his parents’ health aliments increased with their growing age. Kamal’s mother aged 66 years has been hospitalized twice in the last 5-years. At the same time, her knee replacement surgery has been deferred for over an year due to the pandemic. Ranjan’s father aged 68 years also has health issues, but he is better off than his wife.

Kamal’s parents have a health cover of Rs 5 lakhs and are also covered under Kamal’s employer group medical plan for Rs 2.5 lakhs. Kamal wants to increase the medical cover for his parents but he is in a fix. The easiest way to increase their cover was through his employer’s group medical policy but sadly employer’s contract with the insurance company is such that it cannot be increased.

Kamal called up a financial advisor for assistance on how to increase the health cover for his parents. To which the advisor replied since both the parents have crossed the age of 65 years getting a new policy is almost impossible and even if one is issued it will come with a lot of limitations such as very high premiums, co-pay, longer waiting periods which wouldn’t make any economic sense. Had their age been below 65 years there could be better options.

The advisor said don’t be disappointed the good part is your parents are covered with a base policy of Rs 5 lakh. Thanks to this policy they can be issued a super top-up cover where the premiums are very reasonable with just one year of waiting period. Rs 15 lakh super top-up plan can be bought for a premium of around Rs 19,000/- while Rs 25 lakh top-up can be purchased for over Rs 26,000/-. Listening to this Kamal got a sigh of relief and asked the advisor to apply for Rs 25 lakh top-up plan.

Learnings: Just the way you don’t delay your parent’s treatments one should not delay increasing their health cover. Super top-up plans come in handy to senior citizens having a low base policy.