Super Top Up Plans: Best way to enhance health insurance cover.

Medical costs are rising day by day and it has become almost impossible for a common man to afford any basic health treatment in a good hospital. Therefore the demand for health insurance has been constantly rising. It is not only important to have a health insurance cover but also having the correct amount of health cover is also very important. Inadequate health insurance cover is like carrying a baby umbrella in the rain. You will think that the umbrella will protect you against the rain but in fact you will keep becoming wet even after carrying umbrella. If you want to make sure that you do not run out of health insurance cover when it is needed the most, then you need to make sure that you have health insurance cover as per following grid: Age Band Required Health Insurance Cover

0-25 Years : 3,00,000

26-35 Years: 5,00,000

36-50 Years: 10,00,000

Above 50 Years: 15,00,000

 

 

If your health insurance cover is less than mentioned in the above grid then you definitely need to increase the same. There are many ways of increasing the same but one of the best ways is to increase it via a ‘Super Top Up Health Insurance Plan’. What is a super top up health insurance plan? It is just like any other health insurance policy. It covers everything from your hospitalisation bills to day care treatment. But there is one very big difference in super top up plans than a normal health insurance policy. Traditional health insurance policy will pay for all your medical bills up to the insurance cover you have taken under the health insurance policy but in super top up policy, it will pay only those medical bills which exceed a pre-defined threshold limit know as ‘deductible’. Let’s understand super top up policy with the help of an example: Ram has a traditional health insurance policy covering him, his wife and two children for an insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh. He feels that the health insurance cover is insufficient for his family therefore he buys a super top up plan for an additional insurance cover of Rs 10 lakh with a deductible of Rs 5 lakh. Now his total health insurance cover is Rs 15 lakh. Scenario 1 After few years of purchasing the super top up policy Ram was hospitalised and his total medical bills was Rs 3 lakh. Since the total medical bill amount was less than deductible amount of Rs 5 lakh there will be no claim amount payable from the super top up policy. But Mr. Ram can claim full amount of claim from his traditional health insurance policy and he will get the full reimbursement since the claim amount is less than the insurance cover in the traditional health insurance policy. Scenario 2 Ram’s wife was hospitalised and the total medical bills was Rs. 4 lakh. In the same policy year Mr. Ram also got hospitalised and his total medical bills was Rs. 2 lakh. In Mrs. Ram case since the bill amount was less than 5 lakhs, full amount of claim of Rs 4 lakh will be paid by traditional health insurance policy. In Ram’s case since Ram’s wife has already utilised Rs 4 lakh insurance cover, therefore Ram can claim only Rs 1 lakh from his health insurance policy. But Ram had also taken super top up policy which pays when total claim amount in a policy year exceeds Rs 5 lakh, therefore the rest of the claim amount of Rs 1 lakh will be paid by super top up policy. Scenario 3 Mr. Ram’s family met with an accident and the total medical bill amount was Rs 9 lakh for the family. In this case first 5 lakh claim amount will be paid by normal health insurance policy and the claim amount above Rs 5 lakh will be paid by super top up policy. Conclusion Super top up policy pays only when the total claim amount in a policy year exceeds the amount of deductible under the policy. Therefore, super top up policy is a great and a very effective way of increasing your health insurance cover at an affordable cost.

Source: Moneycontrol