Celebrate Republic Day 2022 by making the correct investment on a health insurance plan

Posted on: Dec 22, 2021 | 3 mins | Written by: HDFC ERGO Team

Celebrate Republic Day 2022 by making the correct investment on a health insurance plan

Affording quality healthcare in India is no cakewalk. Costs are constantly on the rise, and even small medical procedures can drain your savings. Just like the constitution of India protects your rights, having the best health insurance in India can protect your savings and help you get the best treatment available. So, this Republic Day, when you decide to opt for wider coverage with more inclusions and benefits, you need to be ready to pay a bigger policy premium. Let’s discuss what percentage of your salary you should be investing in health insurance.

Why is health insurance important?

There are many reasons why having the best health insurance in India is a must. Here are some of them:

• You might be young and following a healthy lifestyle, but ailments and accidents can come without any prior warnings. So, while believing in your immunity is good, staying unprepared is not.

• Know that anything from a mosquito bite to a wrong turn on the road can land you in a hospital and it can eat up a major part of your savings. Which means, you need a health plan. Medical science has made great progress over the decades and found cures for several life-threatening diseases. But this advancement has also inflated the price of quality healthcare facilities.

• A health insurance plan shields your finances and gives you the choice to opt for the best treatment available without losing sleep over medical expenses. It also pays for expenses incurred during the pre and post-hospitalisation period.

• Even if you have a plan provided by your employer, relying on it completely can be tricky as its coverage may not be adequate to cover your health needs.

• With a health plan, you get cashless treatment. This feature saves the day when you don’t have enough cash in your bank.

• There are a host of plans available in the market today and they can be customised specifically to your needs and budget. From a critical illness plan to maternity-specific ones, you can add different features if you want too.

• There are many top-up plans available that give a further boost to your existing plan when the sum insured appears insufficient.

• You get other benefits like free annual health check-ups, ambulance services, treatment expenses for AYUSH, mental illness, etc.

• Since there is a waiting period for several ailments in health insurance plans, buying one when you are healthy becomes beneficial because you can easily wade through that period without having to make any claim requests.

• Lastly, you can avail tax benefits by buying a health plan under Section 80D of the Income Tax Act.

Salary & health insurance

To begin with, you can start investing anything between two to five percent of your annual income on health plans. That’s what most financial experts suggest. So, for a person with an annual package of INR 6 lakhs, the policy premium range would be INR 12,000 to INR 30,000. However, there is no one-cap-fits-all approach to it. Everyone has different needs. For example, if you stay in a big city where medical facilities are costlier, your sum insured can’t be the same as someone in a small town. Similarly, the needs vary according to factors like age, pre-existing conditions, medical history, nature of the job, etc. The bigger sum insured you want and the more benefits you would like to include in the plan, the bigger will be the premium.

Using premium calculator

Since many factors play a role in deciding your policy premium, a health insurance premium calculator can help in determining what will be the right policy for you. You can go to your insurer’s website, fill in the details they ask for and hit the ‘get quote’ button. Then you will be taken to the calculator page, where you can select the coverage and check the premium amount for the different combinations. The calculation will be done based on family size, age, place of residence, type of policy needed, basic lifestyle questions, etc.

Conclusion

The first step towards getting the BEST HEALTH INSURANCE IN INDIA is to know your needs well. The next step is to do thorough research and compare different plans. The more you learn about inclusions, exclusions, discounts, terms and conditions, the better will be your choice. The premium shouldn’t be the only deciding factor though. The bigger picture is to future-proof your health insurance coverage.

Disclaimer: The above information is for illustrative purpose only. For more details, please refer to policy wordings and prospectus before concluding the sales.

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