5 Things You Didn’t Know About Your Health Insurance Benefits

Personal health or the health of a family member is your first priority. If you are physically fit and think that a health cover is not worth it, you must think again. A healthy individual can fall prey to diseases that require costly treatment anytime. Hospitalisation and treatment costs for every possibility are increasing and are expected to remain so for now. In such a scenario, Individual health insurance plans are offered by all insurance companies to ensure health security to each and every person.

Also Read: How Long-Term Health Insurance Can Benefit You

For those availing the individual health insurance for the first time, it is important to know about the following five benefits which are not commonly known.

1. Tax benefits

Apart from providing you with health security, a medical insurance plan can help you to save your taxes under Section 80D of the Income Tax Act. According to the Income Tax Laws of 2015-2016, the premiums paid for the health policies of your parents are also admissible to reduce your tax liability. However, the amount of deduction depends on the age of the member who is medically insured and his policy premium being taken into account.

The range of tax deduction that can be availed ranges from Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 60,000 per annum depending on the age of the person whose policy premium is being taken into account. The deduction in case of senior citizens above 60 years is certainly on the higher side of this range.

2. Health Check Benefit

Barely 25% of policy holders ever use this benefit. Your individual health plan provides for a free health check once every four years. The process of application may vary from one insurer to another, but one thing remains the same – the test results do not impact your current policy premiums. The new results will only be considered if you want to increase your sum insured or purchase a new health plan.

3. No-claims Bonus

It is not every year that you need to avail the benefits of your health cover, until and unless you suffer from certain major diseases like cancer. In such a case, a no-claims bonus can be availed leading to annual advantages.

A no-claim bonus refers to the benefits you can avail during the renewal of your policy if you have not made a claim in the previous year. Based on this, most insurers will assure to increase the total sum assured of your health plan or offer discount in the premium costs.

4. Top-ups and Super Top-ups

You can add to your total sum insured by top-ups and super top-up schemes. A top-up plan is an extra sum insured that will pay the expenses of a single hospitalisation if it crosses the base limit.

A super top-up is an amount over and above the base policy that can be availed multiple times in a year to cover the increased requirement as a result of inflation.

5. Restore or Refill Benefit

Restore Benefit is offered in case you end up exhausting the whole of the sum insured. In such a case, your sum insured will be restored in case the claim is made for a different illness during the same policy year. It is similar to a super top-up plan, but it can only be availed for a separate disease and within the same policy year

For example, if you end up having a stomach tumour problem due to which you end up exhausting all the sum insured, say Rs. 15,00,000 and then after a couple of months in the same policy year, if unfortunately, you are diagnosed with some heart illness, the insurance company will refill the sum insured of Rs. 15,00,000.

However, this is not feasible in case of relapse of the previous disease or if the claim is made in the next policy year.

Disclaimer: All information in this article has been provided by HDFC Ergo and NDTV is not responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the same.