A Guide to the Need of Family Health Insurance and How It Works

Each day, the medical fraternity is discovering one or the other virus or bacteria that are potential health hazards.  When a person contracts such a virus or bacteria, the cost of cure is also quite high given the increasing cost of medical facilities.

So, one should consider buying a family health insurance to ensure that no one in their family is devoid of medical attention. In today’s time of escalated health facilities, an insurance policy backs you up financially.

How Does the Family Insurance work?

The family floater cover is the most widely bought cover of insurance policy. In this kind of policy, the cover can be extended to family members like mother, father, daughter son etc. One can also include close relatives who live together with them. One can also find individual covers that cater to just one person’s medical expenses.

In order to ensure that you buy an appropriate family health insurance policy, keep the following 

things in mind.

1. The Claim Process

One buys the family health cover to ensure that they have financial assistance in case of any medical emergency. However, if the claim process is tedious and involves too many steps, such a policy is not worth buying. So, when buying the policy, it is essential that you look through the claim process.  

2. The Exclusion

Every health insurance policy has exclusions.  Some of the common exclusions include maternity expenses, circumcision, plastic surgery and rehabilitation expenses. Most policies also exclude the dental expenses. So, in case you are waiting for this insurance cover to undergo any important operation, make sure that it is not a part of the exclusion.

3. The policy Extensions

There are some defined inclusions and exclusions of a family health insurance policy. But since the need of people vary; most insurers have a list of extensions that can be availed by paying some extra amount. So, if you feel that the policy inclusions are short of your necessities, be sure to take a look at the list of extra covers.

4. The Applicable Discounts

Discounts in the form of no claim bonus percentage are given by numerous insurers. So, before buying or renewing the policy, make sure you are checking all the discounts that are applicable.

5. Renewability

A family health insurance should not have an age limit for renewability.

6. Lookup Period

Lookup period is the buffer time that has been given by the insurer to the insured to return the policy if he feels that the policy does not suffice to his needs.

7. Hospitals in the Network  

Last but not the least; do ensure that the insurer offers coverage in a wide number of hospitals within the country. The importance of this point can be understood from this example. Suppose you live in Delhi and travelling to Mumbai for a vacation. Now, one of your family members falls ill and need to be admitted to the hospital. If the insurer does not have a wide network of hospitals, it will be really difficult to search for the hospital in a new city.