What’s should be your strategy for primary market in FY25?

Over the last year, the world around us has changed upside down. The aftermath of Covid-19 pandemic triggered the awareness and need for an effective health insurance cover to absorb the financial shocks that come in the form of healthcare expenses. The medical infrastructure in India may be spread from end to end but is hardly affordable for the middle class and lower middle-class Indian families. It has, thus, pushed most people to review their existing policies to see if they are underinsured and enhance their existing coverages and limits.

The severity of a particular disease/accident varies from person to person. The impact of Covid-19 virus, for example, followed no rule book. For some, the pandemic was like another viral flu while it became a life-threatening disease for others. Therefore, choosing comprehensive health insurance with maximum coverage should be the ideal goal. Add-ons or riders can be a good option to enhance your existing health insurance policy.

Insurance riders are purely meant to elevate the level of protection for the policyholder. It makes the policy more comprehensive in nature. Let’s discuss some popular health insurance riders one can avail to their benefit.

Critical illness cover

A critical illness rider can provide you extra coverage against critical illnesses like  stroke, multiple sclerosis, major organ transplant, open chest CABG, heart attack, etc. If you are diagnosed with any of the covered illnesses or undergo a covered treatment, the sum insured is paid in a lump sum. You can use the sum insured to pay for advance medical treatments or to fulfil any other financial obligation that you might have.

This rider can also act as an alternate source of income if the insured cannot continue his/her professional services due to a prolonged critical illness. Critical illness plans, therefore, provide a lump sum financial assistance in the face of major illnesses and prove to be valuable coverage.

Hospital cash

Under hospital cash cover, if during the policy term, the bodily injury of the insured person is not cured and due to this, the person has to be hospitalized as a patient, then the amount as mentioned in the policy schedule or certificate of insurance will be given to the patient. This scheme can be taken along with health insurance or separately. Hospital cash policy brings down expenses during treatment, as it can be used for some of the expenses which are not covered by health insurance.

Apart from this, in mediclaim, you choose the sum insured, but in the hospital cash policy, you have to choose how much coverage you want per day. The amount received under this insurance has nothing to do with the cost of treatment. This amount can be used to buy goods for tests or operations. It also includes loss of income during hospitalisation. The amount can range from Rs 500-Rs 3000 per day. Moreover, in the case of ICU hospitalisation, the benefit amount will be doubled.

Top-up and super top-up plan

If you’re looking for an additional cover at low premium over and above an existing health plan, top-up health insurance plans can be explored. Such plans provide financial security in case the basic threshold limit under the regular policy gets saturated. However, the cost of a top-up plan is linked to the deductible limit. This limit is pre-decided and mentioned in the policy document. Only if the cost of a single illness crosses the deductible limit, the top-up plan kicks in.

On the other hand, a super top-up offers provision for multiple claims. A super top plan comes to one’s aid when a single claim doesn’t outlive the threshold limit of the insurance cover but multiple claims do. It basically puts together all the hospitalisation claims to calculate the deductible limit while top-up calculates it basis a single illness during a single hospitalisation. Remember that the higher the deductible, the cheaper the top up plan.

Vector insurance

Due to the tropical and sub-tropical climate in India, cases of vector-borne diseases like malaria, dengue and chikungunya are rather common. These diseases are spread via mosquitoes and cause serious illness to many, often requiring hospitalisation as well. One can consider buying a vector insurance cover as it offers a lump sum benefit if the insured is diagnosed and hospitalised due to severe diseases caused by vectors.

You have the option to include any or all of these riders in your health insurance. It will act as a safety jacket that you can rely on during times of any medical emergency.