Enhance your Medical Coverage with Inexpensive Top-Up Plan

Posted on: Jan 3, 2019 | | Written by:

Enhance your Medical Coverage with Inexpensive Top-Up Plan

Health is a major concern for most of us. From elderly parents to newborn children, medication and hospitalization play a significant role while ensuring the health of a family. While age-related ailments are almost inevitable, even the young generation of today is not immune from health risks, notably the lifestyle-related ailments. Rising medical treatment costs and soaring medicine prices can potentially drain your savings if you are not well prepared.

A Health Insurance acts as a protection measure in the event you or your family members need to get hospitalized. Regular Health Insurance plans come in two basic variants – Individual plans and Family Floaters. An individual health insurance plan is a separate insurance for individuals with defined cover. A Family Floater plan, on the other hand, is a Health Insurance policy that covers an entire family and in which the limit (insurance amount or the sum assured) can be utilized by any of member of the family. With uncertainty regarding medical emergencies and rising costs of healthcare, not having a Health Insurance could be risky.

Maybe you have a Health Insurance cover on you and your family for a few years now. Maybe your original Sum Insured (Basic sum insured along with cumulative bonus) has increased over time because you did not face any medical emergency. Great! But with rising medical costs and expensive new forms of treatments, do you feel that your current medical cover is sufficient?

Today, a bypass surgery at a reputed hospital may cost in excess of Rs 3 lakh. Most hospital visits are not planned in advance, and a sudden medical emergency can set you back with a few lakh rupees in one shot and you may realize that your Health Insurance policy has not kept pace with the medical inflation!

While choosing a health plan online, you must account for the medical inflation which is estimated around 15% on a yearly basis in India. Factoring inflation, you would certainly need a double layer of protection to safeguard against medical emergencies. Also, the medical care is becoming less invasive and more costly due to new technologies. The cost of super-specialty equipment and robotics is naturally passed on to the patients.

You have a couple of options if you feel your current Sum Insured will not be adequate to cover rising healthcare costs. The first option is to go for another Health Insurance policy that will add up to a sufficient amount or increase the Sum Insured under your existing policy. With your increased age and general inflation, a new health plan for similar Sum Insured will sure cost you more than your original policy. You might also be required to undergo a medical examination to get the new policy.

A better option is a Top-Up plan. A Top-Up plan is designed to supplement your primary Health Insurance cover at an affordable premium. But the point to note here is an amount called as “threshold level” also known as “deductible” amount. This amount is the level above which the Top-Up can be utilized for paying the expenses. Deductible is a cost-sharing requirement under a Health Insurance policy. It is the amount over which the claim for each hospitalization is reimbursable. A regular Health Insurance policy reimburses hospital bills up to the sum insured, while a Top-Up plan covers costs after the deductible is reached. Top-Up plans are inexpensive because of the deductibles. The higher the deductible, the cheaper will be the plan. Also, in Top-Up policies, there is no requirement of medical check-ups up to the age of 55 years. In regular health plans, this is usually 45 years.

For instance, if an individual has a basic medical insurance of Rs 3 lakh and he takes a Top-Up plan of Rs 5 lakh with 3 lakh deductible, his total sum insured would be Rs 8 lakh. In the event the insured meets with an accident and is hospitalized and his claims amount is Rs 3 lakh, it will be paid from his basic policy. If the claim amount exceeds Rs 3 lakh, the additional amount will be reimbursed from the Top-Up plan. This case assumes the threshold level of Rs 3 lakh, which is same as the coverage of the base mediclaim policy. In simple words, when you are hospitalized, your basic policy will pay up to the set Sum Insured limit. The top-up, on the other hand, will kick in only after the threshold limit, say, Rs 3 lakh has been crossed. It will pay for the claim amount over and above it.

HDFC ERGO’s Health Suraksha Top-Up Plus is what you can turn to when you feel you want more from your Health Insurance policy. HDFC Top-Up Plus supplements your existing Health policy, insuring you for a larger Sum Insured at lower cost. Coverage under this plan is initiated after the deductible in the policy is exhausted. You can stay covered under Health Suraksha Top-Up Plus for the entire life since there is no-exit age. Health Suraksha Top-Up Plus plan comes with option of 1 Year & 2 Years for Individual & Family Floater. And you get additional Tax Benefit under Section 80D, which is over and above the 80 C limit of the Income Tax.

HDFC ERGO’s Health Suraksha Top-Up Plus covers In-patient Treatment, Pre-Hospitalization, Post-Hospitalization, Day care procedures, Domiciliary Treatment, Organ Donor etc. It comes with Sum Insured options of Rs 3 lakh, Rs 4 lakh, Rs 5 lakh, Rs 7.50 lakh and Rs 10 lakh. You can choose deductibles at Rs 2 lakh, Rs 3 lakh, Rs 4 lakh and Rs 5 lakh. You also get a family discount of 10% if three or more family members are covered on Individual Sum Insured basis under one adult plan in the same policy. As renewal incentives, you get a cumulative bonus of 5% of the Sum Insured for every claim-free year accumulating up to 50%. In the event of a claim, the cumulative bonus shall be reduced by 5%at the time of renewal. Anyone in the age-group 5-65 can get this plan. However, there will be no cover-ceasing age. Children are covered from 91 days onwards if both parents are covered under same policy.

What is a Health Insurance Top Up Plan?

Tackle Your Hospital Bills With Top Up Health Insurance

Importance of Top up Plans in Health Insurance