Let’s understand it this way. Every month you save a part of your salary to meet future expenses. Suddenly you or someone in your family got hospitalized due to sickness & the expense of Rs 50K (well... I am taking expenses on very low side) need to be paid from own pocket.

Just think how much salary portion, you require to re-accumulate this Rs 50000 amount lost due to hospitalization. What about the medicine & other expenses that you need to pay after you get discharged from hospital. And then it would be unfortunate but I have to stress on this part ….What are the chances that you & your family need not to face hospitalization again very soon?

Now look at health insurance premium which could be Rs 25000-30000 approx. for family of 35-year-old male, his wife & 2 kids(example) which you would have paid for covering your family for entire 1 year for amount of 10 Lac.

Hope you understood why health insurance is important. As far as health insurance definition is concerned it is a financial contingency product for you & your family (parents, spouse & kids) which protects your    hard-earned savings by getting wiped off in case of hospitalization due to disease or accident.

Often people ask what is the difference between Health Insurance and Mediclaim. To clarify this Health insurance and Mediclaim is one & the same thing. In 1986 four PSU insurance companies launched first Indian retail health insurance product by the name Mediclaim.

Health insurance and Life insurance are totally different from each other. While Health insurance covers your financial risk of hospitalization, Term insurance acts as savings pool in case of death of earning member of the family.

Health insurance is required to help you in protecting your hard-earned savings in case of hospitalization due to sickness or accident.

Every insurance company has an agreement signed with specific hospitals under which they offer cashless service to people. For rest of the hospitals, person has to pay by pocket initially & then later on claim from Insurance company. There is third category of hospitals which are blacklisted by Insurance company which means no claim will be entertained if you get hospitalized in any one of these hospitals.

Many of us perceive paying insurance premium as burden as unlike other product/service... as this doesn’t offer any immediate usage.

Moreover, people ask me why do we need health insurance or isn’t it better to pay out of pocket since we are fit hence our chances of hospitalization are less compared to others.

Here i would like to clarify, health insurance usage is not limited to disease related hospitalization but covers accident as well.

Even if you ignore this, how will you cope up with hospitalization expenses at older age as once you contract any disease then policy issuance depends on level of disease. Higher the severity of that disease lesser or nil... will be your chances to get insurance.

People understand the importance but at times delay the buying decision just thinking over how much would health insurance cost for me & my family.

I suggest you first talk to you near & dear ones those who were hospitalized & how a right health insurance helped them in covering hospitalization expenses & protecting their savings.

Now let’s understand how economic health insurance is.

35 year old person paying Rs 25000 as premium covering his wife & kids for Rs 25000 for cover of 10 Lac. A single hospitalisation claim of Rs 5 lac then the same would be recovered by insurance company when that person pays premium for 20 years(20 years * 25000 = Rs 5 Lac).

When to buy health insurance is one important question which one should know. Well you can apply for health insurance once you are of 18 years of age & started earning.

People ask why at so early age?? Well Health Insurance comes up with waiting period of 1,2 & 3-4 years of waiting which means you cannot claim for any such disease which falls under these categories till your policy is that old.  Unfortunately, people start taking interest in health insurance when they get any health complication or observe other people struggling with managing hospitalization expenses in absence of health insurance.

Another scenario applicable basis family conditions of an individual is when you are 18, your parents must be nearing to their 50’s and with old age comes health issues. You sure want to take care of medical expenses of your parents and be a responsible child , wouldn’t you??

This question is generally been put up by those covered under their parent policy. Here they should know …health insurance products cover children in parent policy till the time they attain age of 18 year (some insurers cover up to 21 year). But after that you have to avail separate policy for yourself.

Good employer offer group health insurance to their employees. But the cover lasts till the time you are working in that company. Now you will say, I have good profile so the company where I would join next will also offer me cover.

I give you 2 solid reasons as to why one should buy personal health insurance.

Reason 1: What about the time gap between, you quit current job & joined another one. Joining formalities takes time & employer will also require some time to get you covered. Well this real life incident actually happened with me. Secondly what will happen when you get retire, at that time due to serious health complication, insurance companies can decline your proposal for buying policy. Remember insurance is not offered for risks that are confirmed and certain in nature.

Reason 2 Agreement signed up between Employer & insurance company is not under employee control. With increasing health premium cost, employers offer low cover amount with sub limits and waiting period. Also many group policies have now stopped covering employee parents or offer very low cover amount.