Buying a health insurance cover to protect your family from unseen health care expenses is quite a responsible step taken in the right direction. But you must know that to keep the insurance cover valid, you also need to renew it annually. Health insurance cover offers adequate coverage for all possible medical expenses incurred by the policyholder during the policy tenure. Depending on the type of your health insurance policy, you can claim for different medical expenses that can include hospitalisation costs, day-care procedures, surgeries, pre and post-hospitalisation costs, etc. Within your health insurance cover, you may also add different riders and add-ons to make the policy more comprehensive.
Renewal of Health Insurance Cover
Like every other insurance policy, health insurance too needs to be renewed annually to enjoy uninterrupted coverage. You may choose to buy or renew a policy online either through the insurer’s website or from any of the online insurance aggregators to compare quotes from different insurers and compare the different features and benefits. Before renewing the policy, it is very important to compare it with different insurers in order to get the most appropriate cover and best prices.
Things to Consider While Renewing Your Health Insurance
Though health insurance cover renewal is quite a simple and easy process, especially when done online, yet there are many important things that must be kept in mind before renewing the existing policy. This will help you make a smart and informed decision.
Assess Your Insurance Needs
When choosing the total sum assured for the insurance cover, most people fail to take into account the inflation rate which is significantly responsible for increasing the healthcare cost. Due to this, they often end up taking a cover with insufficient sum assured. As a policy seeker, you must take into consideration various things including your age, your lifestyle, any pre-existing diseases if any and medical history of your family. Maybe your existing policy is not sufficiently equipped to take care of all your healthcare needs. Before renewal, it is recommended to assess your present and future health insurance needs. After proper assessment, take the right decision of either choosing a higher sum insured or adding a rider to the standard policy, or even both.
Before Renewing, Look for Other Options
Under every insurance cover, you have the prerogative of portability which allows you to transfer your insurance cover from the existing insurer to another insurer. You can look for other available options in case you are not satisfied with the features and benefits of your existing insurer. You may even choose to change your insurer if you find that your existing insurer charges higher premium, sub-limits or have excessive co-pay. Another great advantage of switching from one insurer to another is that you do not lose out on various important elements of health insurance including the waiting period and No-Claim Bonus (NCB). However, it must be noted that in order to port your health insurance cover, you need to initiate the process 60 days prior to the expiry date of your existing policy.
Review the Renewal Terms and Conditions
Policyholders receive a renewal reminder by their respective insurers 45 days prior to the date of renewal. The reminder – usually an email – contains all the policy details including the total sum assured, types and number of claims made within the year, and most importantly, no-claim bonus only if applicable. As a policyholder, you must be always diligent and inform your insurer immediately if you find any discrepancy in the policy details specified in the reminder mail. With this, you will also get to know if there have been any changes in the terms and conditions of the policy.
The following is a comparative table of 5 leading insurance companies providing Health Insurance cover of Rs 10 Lakh sum assured for a 30 year old male who earns between Rs 5 to 7 lakh annually and lives in a metro city.
