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Advantages of Health Insurance
Protects Your Savings
A significant benefit of medical insurance is that it safeguards your hard-earned savings even if you face a medical emergency. You would never want to exhaust your life’s savings on paying medical bills. A health policy ensures that your insurance company pays your medical bills and that your savings remain intact.
Financial Coverage
One of the most significant advantages of health insurance is that it provides financial coverage to the insured for medical expenses incurred on a planned or emergency hospitalization. This means that your insurance company will pay your hospital bills if you have a health policy. It also covers the cost of treatment for a disease or medical condition.
Thus, health insurance ensures that you don’t have to compromise on the quality of treatment and can obtain it at the time of need without worrying about arranging money.
Tailor-made Health Plans
Another advantage of health insurance is that they offer coverage to people with varied health needs. Besides hospitalization, people can also buy medical insurance to ensure coverage for critical illnesses, slow-growing diseases, pregnancy, etc. They have the option to either go for a customized plan or opt for these covers as a rider.
Moreover, people can choose an individual, family, or senior citizen plan depending on the people who need to be insured.
Tax Benefit
By buying medical insurance, you also get the advantage of tax deductions. Section 80D of the Income Tax Act 1989 states that health insurance premiums are eligible for tax deductions. This means the amount you have paid as your policy premium will be eligible for tax savings.
Free Health Check-ups/Preventions are Covered
Most health insurance plans offer the benefit of free health check-ups. Under this benefit, the insured can get their preventive health check-up done free of cost. While some programs provide this facility every year, others may offer it after a block of a few years.
Things to Consider in Health Insurance
Premium Hikes with Age
The person’s age primarily determines the premium of a health policy. The higher the person’s age, the higher the premium. This is because the chances of developing a disease or medical condition increase as the age of a person increases.
Sub-limit/Capping on Coverage Limit
Some health insurance plans come with the disadvantage of capping or sub-limit. Capping restricts the amount of coverage that the policyholder can claim under a health insurance policy.
Co-Payments
Most simply, a copayment (copay) is a fixed amount you pay for healthcare services. Sometimes, copays are not available until after you’ve met your annual deductible. You’ll encounter copays for a variety of different services, from primary care to emergency transportation.
Coinsurance Benefits
Your coinsurance percentage is the amount your health insurance plan will pay for a covered service after you’ve met your deductible. So, coinsurance payments are just another means through which you contribute to your care until you reach your out-of-pocket maximum.u
