The importance of health insurance can’t be denied in today’s time of high medical cost, the incidence of critical illnesses like heart attack, diabetes, high blood pressure is on the rise owing to excessive pollution & other environmental disturbances. This has led to lots of people taking the shelter of Health Insurance.

Types of Health Insurance

The oldest Health Insurance is the Mediclaim Insurance, which covers an individual in case of medical contingency. It has got two variants; Group Medical Insurance, which covers a group of people, and the Family Floater Plan, which covers the entire family under one premium.

A third kind or plan in Health Insurance has come up recently is the Critical Care Plan that gives insurance to the insured against specific illnesses.

Different Health Plans by Companies

Now the market is flooded with various innovative health insurance products. Earlier it was only the General Insurance companies who were providing health insurance plans but now Life Insurance companies have also started providing some innovative health plans.

The General Insurance companies have come up with various health insurance plans like Floater Plans, Critical Care Plans etc. Under the health plans by General Insurers the cover is normally renewed every year where the premium amount & the cover amount will fluctuate owing to the claims the insured has made. In the Health Plans by Life Insurers the premium is paid for a long term wherein you don’t need to renew your cover every year. They put a cap on the coverage i.e. the actual expenses are not insured but a certain percentage of total amount you have paid would be insured. The life insurers have also come with various plans, which complement their life plans like critical care plans by Kotak Life insurance, TATA-AIG Life insurance that act as Riders to the life insurance plans.

These days health plans have come up which have an additional benefit of savings to it where you get the benefit of insuring your health & at the same time investing you money in the equity markets. These plans are by Reliance & LIC, which are called Unit Linked Health Insurance Plans. On the other hand the plans by General Insurers have also got various variants in it like Individual Health Plans, Family Floater Plans & Critical care plans, which include reimbursing of hospitalization expenses with coverage of 30 days Pre & 60 Post hospitalization expenses where the Pre-existing diseases are normally covered after 2- 4 years.

Following points you must know while buying health insurance plans

You must know your needs:You must identify your needs before you buy any health plan i.e. if you want to insure your entire family then you can go for a Family Floater Plan. During the early years of your life the possibility of occurrence of critical diseases is low at this age therefore a higher cover is not required. As you grow old you should keep increasing your sum assured/cover.

Read the Exclusions: You must make sure that you read the exclusions of your policy carefully so as to know which all diseases & in what all situations the individual is covered.

Disclose the pre-existing diseases before you buy the policy as the company might reject your claim later. These days in health plans the Pre-existing diseases are normally covered after 2-4 claim free years varying from company to company.

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