Little benefits of health insurance

The primary benefit of a health insurance plan is to cover you from the financial risks of hospitalisation. A typical hospitalisation for treatment or surgery may easily set the patient back by a few lakh rupees — a huge cost that may drain his life savings. But a health insurance plan, bought for a few thousand rupees, can protect the patient against these costs.

The health insurance marketplace has evolved a great deal to accommodate the growing needs of policy seekers. Policies now include features that go above and beyond, aiding the policy holder in his time of need. The next time you are buying a health policy, you may ask if it has some of these features that may be useful to you.

Sum assured restoration
As a policy holder, you may have a particularly troublesome year where you may require multiple hospitalisations. Should you exhaust your sum assured in the first hospitalisation, you may not find coverage during the second. But with a restoration of the sum assured, it becomes possible. Restoration is basically a doubling of the coverage, and is allowed under specific conditions which you must ascertain before buying the policy.

Domiciliary treatments
While health insurance helps fund your hospitalisation, finding a hospital bed itself should not be taken for granted. For example, there may be a shortage of rooms in the hospital in your city, as a result of which you are put on a waiting list. To help you in this situation, some insurance plans can cover domiciliary treatment — basically, treatment taken at home. There may be a ceiling or sub-limit on the expenses incurred during such a treatment.

Alternative medicines
The traditional health insurance plan may cover only allopathic treatments while excluding traditional and non-allopathic treatments. However, some plans may make an exception and include them. If you prefer Ayurvedic, Unani, or Homoeopathic treatments, you may opt for a policy that allows these lines of treatment. However, such policies may set limits on the extent to which claims towards alternative treatments can be made.

No claim bonus
Policy holders with good health can expect rewards. Some insurance plans offer a no-claim bonus for every claim-free year. This is typically provided as an increase in the sum assured up to a specified limit. For example, your sum assured of Rs 5 lakh will grow by 10 per cent for every claim-free year.

Convalescence benefit
Hospitalisation brings about several financial difficulties, such as having to pay expenses during recovery, or loss of income. An insurance plan with convalescence benefit may be useful in these scenarios. To help policy holders overcome these financial inconveniences, a policy with convalescence benefits may pay a sum in case the hospitalisation exceeds a fixed period-10 days for example.

Daily cash benefit
Hospitalisation can have several non-medical expenses that will ordinarily not be covered by health insurance. However, an insurance plan with a daily cash benefit may provide the policy holder petty cash to a fixed daily limit, helping him meet the miscellaneous costs of hospital stay, such as food from the cafeteria.

OPD treatments
OPD costs are not covered by the typical health insurance plan. However, some policies allow you to opt for this benefit. OPD costs such as consultation fees, tests and costs of medicines may be covered under this.

Eye & Dental cover
Typically excluded from health insurance, eye care (laser surgery, eye exam etc.) or dental care (dental exam, tooth care, etc.) may be covered under a specially-provided benefit.

Costs of organ donor
Organ transplants can be very expensive procedures. But some health plans can help you cover not just the cost of transplant but also the expenses incurred by the organ donor.

Get a free health exam every year
Many health insurance plans offer one free health examination to the policy holder every year. The value of this examination is predetermined. Some plans may offer this feature after a certain number of claim-free years. This is a useful feature for health conscious persons who like keeping a tab on their health status.

Ambulance costs
Most health plans will cover your ambulance costs up to a predefined limit. This is a small but significant cost-saving measure as you go about receiving treatment.

You don’t need to decide your health insurance purchase by premium costs alone. Here are tonnes of other features to help you make up your mind.

The writer is the the CEO of  BankBazaar.com