Skip to main content

Individual health plan is a safer option

Invest Mutual Funds Online

Call 0 94 8300 8300 (India) 

WHILE choosing a health insurance plan various aspects need to be evaluated. The common queries range from ­ which is the best plan for health insurance, should one go for a floater policy or a plan with individual sum insured, what should be the sum insured and will that sum be sufficient? There are also a few questions that you need to ask yourself such as what is your age, are you single, or do you have a family consisting spouse and children or do you want to cover your parents in the same policy? You need to assess requirements based on all these factors.

For a single person aged 25 years a sum insured of Rs 1,50,000 would be the minimum recommended cover. A person above 25 and up to age 35 years should be looking at any thing around Rs 2,00,000 to Rs 2,50,000. A person above age 45 years must have a policy with minimum Rs 3,00,000 as sum insured. This is considering the incidences of sickness as well average maximum expenses for hospitalisation due to any major illness or accident for respective age groups.

There are floater products in the market where the sum insured floats over the family. This means any one individual under the poli cy can claim up to the family floater sum insured, however, the maximum that can be claimed for all covered persons put together would be limited to the family sum insured in a policy period. Family floater sums insured of Rs 7,50,000 or Rs 10,00,000 could be considered reasonable protection for a family of self, spouse and two children. However, family floater policies with low sums insured say Rs 2,00,000 to Rs 3,00,000 may be inadequate, god forbid there is an accident involving two or more persons of the family and consequent hospitalisation expenses could go very high.

Similarly, if the age profile of persons in the family is on the higher side then considering the risk profiles and incidences of major illnesses, the family floater sum insured may be found to be inadequate.

It is recommended that a policy with individual sums insured would be a better and safe option.


With introduction of portability such policies will be easily portable with full benefits across insurers. The floater policies though cheaper than the individual ones, the benefits from an individual policy in terms of suffi cient protection are much higher compared to the discounts in premiums in a floater policy. Further most policies where sums insured are on individual basis a provision of a family discount of 5 per cent to 10 per cent is generally available when more than one person is covered.

While choosing a retail health insurance plan in addition to the sum insured one has to evaluate the extent of coverage as well as product specifications of the plans offered by different insurers. The waiting periods including those for pre-existing conditions, any sub-limits for room rents, sub-limits for certain specific conditions like appendicitis, hysterectomies, cataracts, detailed exclusion list, co-payments and age up to which the policy is renewal.

One of the biggest differentiator in health insurance are the service levels of the insurer and it has been observed that insurance companies which have an in-house claims servicing unit have proved to be much better in service levels than those who use TPAs.

Happy Investing!!

We can help. Call 0 94 8300 8300 (India)

Leave your comment with mail ID and we will answer them

OR

You can write back to us at PrajnaCapital [at] Gmail [dot] Com

 

---------------------------------------------

Invest Mutual Funds Online

Transact Mutual Fund Online

Download Mutual Fund Application Forms from all AMCs

Download Mutual Fund Application Forms

Best Performing Mutual Funds

    1. Largecap Funds Invest Online
      1. DSP BlackRock Top 100 Fund
      2. ICICI Prudential Focused Blue Chip Fund
      3. Birla Sun Life Front Line Equity Fund
    2. Large and Midcap Funds Invest Online

      1. ICICI Prudential Dynamic Plan
      2. HDFC Top 200 Fund
      3. UTI Dividend Yield Fund
    1. Mid and SmallCap Funds Invest Online

      1. Reliance Equity Opportunities Fund
      2. DSP BlackRock Small & Midcap Fund
      3. Sundaram Select Midcap
      4. IDFC Premier Equity Fund
    1. Small and MicroCap Funds Invest Online

      1. DSP BlackRock MicroCap Fund
    1. Sector Funds Invest Online

      1. Reliance Banking Fund
      2. Reliance Banking Fund
    1. Tax Saver Mutual  Funds  Invest Online
      1. ICICI Prudential Tax Plan
      2. HDFC Taxsaver
      3. DSP BlackRock Tax Saver Fund
      4. Reliance Tax Saver (ELSS) Fund
    2. Gold Mutual Funds Invest Online

      1. Relaince Gold Savings Fund
      2. ICICI Prudential Regular Gold Savings Fund
      3. HDFC Gold Fund

 

 

Popular posts from this blog

How to gauge the risk profile of your mutual fund portfolio?

MUTUAL funds are considered to be an investment option for those who do not generally devote a lot of time to monitoring and managing their portfolios. Investors experience both good as well as tough times as far as mutual fund investments are concerned. But while evaluating the portfolio of their equity mutual fund holdings there are a few points that one should check to know about the level of risk that they are facing. Often there are situations where there is a higher risk than what was estimated initially. Here are a few ways to evaluate various risk levels. Individual holding exposure : The portfolio of the equity fund where one has invested or plans to invest needs to be scrutinised to see whether the risk levels are such that could lead to a larger volatility in the holdings. Depending upon this factor and the risk taking ability of the investor the choice about a particular fund as an investment should be made. One key point to watch out is whether there is a large ex...
Read more

Tata Fixed Income Portfolio Fund dividend

Invest In Tax Saving Mutual Funds Online Download Tax Saving Mutual Fund Application Forms Buy Gold Mutual Funds Call 0 94 8300 8300 (India)       Tata Mutual Fund has announced dividend under the dividend option of Tata Fixed Income Portfolio Scheme B2 Plan A-DQ, Tata Fixed Income Portfolio Scheme B2 Reg-DQ and Tata Fixed Income Portfolio Scheme B2 Direct-DQ. The record date has been fixed as August 29, 2013. Happy Investing!! We can help. Call 0 94 8300 8300 (India) Leave your comment with mail ID and we will answer them OR You can write back to us at PrajnaCapital [at] Gmail [dot] Com --------------------------------------------- Invest in Tax Saving Mutual Funds ( ELSS Mutual Funds ) to upto Rs 1 lakh and Save tax under Section 80C. Invest Tax Saving Mutual Funds Onlin...
Read more

NRIs and direct taxes code (DTC)

DTC Proposes To Do Away With Special Provision That Allows NRIs Liberalised Duration Of Stay In Country      THE new direct taxes code could bring a large number of global Indians under the tax net, as it does away with a provision that allowed individuals to escape tax in any country citing double tax avoidance.    The new legislation, introduced in Parliament on Monday, says an individual shall be a resident of India in any financial year if he is in the country for more than 59 days in that year, and has been has been India for more 365 days in four preceding financial years. A number of Indian industrialists including Vedanta's Anil Agarwal and Essar's Ravi Ruia have acquired non-resident status over the years.    The DTC has only attempted to clean up the provision in line with the laws globally. A phrase "being outside India" in the existing income tax law exempted individuals who stay outside the country for six months from paying taxes. This was prone ...
Read more

Stick to Good Fund Manager who Can Multiply Your Investment

A manager may be the difference between the best and worst funds. Here's how you can find the right one    Does a mutual fund manager make a difference to your investment? The answer may not be as easy as you think, since most best-performing mutual funds have moved away from individualistic fund management to process-driven methods, limiting the scope of an individual's role in investment decisions. In fact, many fund managers would speak at length about how the "system" their fund house has in place makes their task of picking stocks easy even though it restricts their freedom. Still, the question is important, especially after recent reports that the Securities and Exchange Board of India ( Sebi ) may ask fund managers to disclose to investors their track record of managing money. Let us take a look at the universe of large-cap funds over the past five years. According to Value Research, an independent mutual fund tracking firm, the topper in the category is DSP...
Read more

Health insurance guide - Part I

Insurance, by definition, is morbid. What if I die suddenly? What if my home caught fire? What if I had to undergo expensive medical treatment? What if something that I thought happened only to others befell me? Insurers, who work with large samples, calculate the probability of such an event and, hence, the possibility of them having to pay out a sum of money to mitigate, to the extent possible, the effects of that disaster. However, the possibility of you undergoing some kind of expensive medical treatment during your lifetime is far more likely than you dying suddenly or your house burning down. Given that costs at private healthcare facilities, where you are most likely to land up, is high, and, doubling every four years 10 months or so, the rest of your money life could easily go out of whack if you had to incur such expenses. Just 12 per cent of India's population is covered with some sort of health insurance. Pared to the bone, for a comparatively small price, health insu...
Read more
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Invest in Tax Saving Mutual Funds Download Any Applications
Transact Mutual Funds Online Invest Online
Buy Gold Mutual Funds Invest Now