Renewing your health insurance policy? Don’t forget this important checklist

Disclosing pre-existing conditions is not just vital at the time of buying a health insurance policy. Make sure you keep your insurer abreast at renewal time also.

While it is crucial to have yourself and your family members covered under a comprehensive health insurance policy considering the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is equally important to renew your existing cover within the due date. You can only take the various benefits offered under a health insurance policy if the cover is valid and has not lapsed due to failure in the renewal of the plan. By renewing your health insurance policy within the due date, you can keep all the benefits intact. In addition, while renewing the policy, there are a few factors that should be given due consideration to enhance the coverage of your policy, and make it more customer friendly and comprehensive. Let us look at some of the aspects that require your due attention.

Review the sum insured

Unfortunately, over the last few years, India’s healthcare inflation has been rising steadily and at an alarming pace. In fact, the medical inflation rate is double the overall retail inflation. The average retail healthcare inflation in FY 2018-19 was 7.14 per cent. In order to make sure that all your expenses are met in case of any hospitalisation, it is important to have a health cover with adequate sum insured. If while buying the health insurance, you opted for a plan with lower sum insured, you can enhance the coverage by increasing the sum insured during renewal.

To determine the right sum insured for your family, it is important to take in account previous claims and the current health status of lives insured. Considering the current scenario and the prevailing conditions due to COVID-19, it is important to have at least Rs 10-15 lakh sum insured for each family member. In case your current insurer refuses to enhance the sum insured, you have the option of porting your health policy to a different insurer. You also have the option of buying a super top-up plan over the base plan to enhance the coverage of the existing plan.

There are now even plans available in the market with Rs 1 crore sum insured that are available at the same premium as Rs 15-20 lakh sum insured plans. A Rs 1 crore sum insured health insurance plan for a family of four – husband, wife and 2 kids – can be bought for as little as Rs 1,500 a month.

Disclose any medical conditions

Most people renewing their health insurance plans have a false perception that it is only important to disclose your pre-existing conditions to the insurer while buying a fresh health policy and not during renewal. However, this is not true. As per most insurers’ terms and conditions, it is important to disclose your pre-existing ailments during both the scenarios – buying a fresh policy and at the time of renewal. If you are diagnosed with any new ailment during the policy tenure, do inform about the same to the insurer at the time of renewal.

This will help in smooth processing of your claim without any hassles. If you fail to disclose your pre-existing conditions, the insurer holds the right to reject your claim request. Being transparent will not only be beneficial, as it will help you process your claim with ease but will also help buy a plan that offers coverage without any mandatory waiting period.

It is important to disclose your pre-existing ailments because, in the future, if you decide to port, and your current condition is mentioned on the proposal form, there will be no fresh waiting periods for that disease. However, if it is not mentioned, then fresh waiting periods will apply for that disease. There are no plans available in the market that come with zero-day waiting period for illnesses as critical as diabetes, asthma, hypertension and several common CVDs.

Review the existing features

If you bought your health insurance cover 5-6 years ago, chances are the cover lacks several key benefits. In the last few years, insurers have come up with several new-age health insurance products with customer-friendly features and benefits. While renewing your health insurance plan, it is important to make note of all the features and benefits that your health plan lacks and port to a better plan, if need be. You can now easily port to a better health plan without losing the continuity benefits. You must switch to plans that have zero co-payment and no-sub limits on various procedures. In addition, at the time of renewal, look for some important add-ons such as OPD coverage, daily cash benefit and zone upgrade, which will make your plan more comprehensive given the current circumstances.

By :AMIT CHHABRA,  Head- Health & Travel Insurance, Policybazaar.com

(The story was first published at Moneycontrol )