How To Ensure You Have Adequate Health Insurance Coverage | Let's Talk Money | CNBC TV18

Welcome back. You are with the final edition of Let's Talk Money for 2024 and we are giving priority to what is perhaps most important that is health and ensuring that you have the right health insurance. We're in conversation with Amit Chhabra of Policy Bazaar as well as Mahavir Chopra of Beshak.org. Gentlemen, so now I'm coming down to the specific action plan and I want to start with people who have pre-existing diseases because that's probably the bulk of the universe, right? Apart from healthy people in their 20s or 30s, either you have BP or you have a case history of diabetes and God forbid maybe you've already had a cardiac surgery but you still want cover for the rest of your life. So where should we begin, people with some sort of a pre-existing condition, how to ensure that I'm buying the right policy and actually getting that benefit? Let's start with you first Amit and then I'll come to Mahavir. Sure, see I think firstly it's important to declare, you know, that's that step one. You must inform the insurance company or Policy Bazaar or wherever you're buying from that you have this pre-existing disease. That's very very important. The second decision to take is do you want a coverage after let's say three years of waiting period or do you want coverage now immediately? That depends on, you know, what do you feel? Do you think you might need to claim sooner or later? If let's say you want coverage and total peace of mind then the right thing to do is take a plan which gives you day one coverage for pre-existing diseases like diabetes, hypertension, asthma, BP, cholesterol, all of these, you know, all of these are available at day one as well. Let's say someone has, you know, hypertension and maybe someone has had some sort of a cardiac history as well and they're looking to take a plan which offers this day one coverage that you're talking about that I want to be covered from day one. I'm willing to pay a little extra. What could ballpark premiums be? See it actually depends would be on the overall plan structure in terms of the incremental premium of day one coverage. It's typically on an average 20 to 25% of the base premium but depending on what the overall product is it can be as low as 30k per person and it can be as high as you know one lakh one lakh fifty thousand rupees per person as well. So it totally depends on you know what what product one is buying but if I have to give you an average of all averages you would expect for a 10 lakh some insured for one person you would expect to pay about 35-40 thousand rupees for a 10 lakh coverage with a day one coverage built into it as well. Which is probably not bad at all considering the way the medical costs are spiraling at least you pay that much premium you have some peace of mind that you'll have some help at hand god forbid if the need arises again so that's really important to keep in mind. Mahavir, coming to you PEDs, pre-existing diseases, any other advice that you'd want to add and then please take up the case for senior citizens as well. Many people like Amit mentioned earlier I mean 20-30 years ago they never thought of buying health insurance and now they need it but they're confused about how to go which plans to select how to get the right you know policy coverage. Right so the first thing which is very important is to ensure that you are getting into a retail health insurance and not getting into a group health insurance. A lot of senior citizens and people who have pre-existing diseases I am seeing are ending up buying group plans from either banks or some other place and these plans are basically one-year plans where premiums can change significantly year on year and also be withdrawn. Right so the first thing that I would like to say this and we're seeing this happening very often on our forum and our platform when we see people coming with grievances is that they have ended up buying a group plan instead of a retail personal health insurance plan. The other two things that I would suggest is that always try to see if there is a free medical checkup that is available in the plan and use it because you have a pre-existing disease it would be good that you use it to basically monitor your health. A lot of health insurance plans now also have wellness features and monitoring features which can also be used you know at their best to basically ensure that you manage your health properly. The last could be basically that when we recommend a plan we also see that plans which have a no-claim bonus that is not linked to claims right so that they get a regular increase in their summit short because for them to get an upgrade in summit short is typically very difficult. So these are things that we typically suggest to people who have pre-existing diseases. For senior citizens I think the plans that are now available are significantly high compared to what was available let's say five years ago or 10 years ago. So always do a lot of research on the kind of plans that are available. All the top-notch plans today in the market are now available for senior citizens also right from the biggest of the companies from HDFC, ICICI, Aditya Birla or anybody else that we're talking about and the companies that Amit mentioned about all of them are offering really good plans to senior citizens. Again the PED waiting period could be a good choice where you could basically look at reducing your PED waiting period because you would want to have an earlier coverage to your existing diseases. Again similarly don't buy group plans and try to buy retail plans which are lifetime renewable compared to a group plan which could be linked to the group that you're part of and plus premiums could be different and the product could be withdrawn. Okay that's important to keep in mind. Finally Amit you know rounded off with giving us some names of insurers that are offering actually good plans where you can go and you can check the nuances yourself but where there is a chance for people with PEDs or senior citizens or disability which are the companies and which are the sort of plans they should explore and any final tips things to keep in mind before you buy the policy. So I think see if money is not a constraint then you can go for a plan like let's say Care Supreme from Care Health Insurance, there is Reassure by Nivabhupa, there is Superstar which is a recently launched plan by Star Health Insurance, there is Elevate by CSEA Lombard, there is Active One by Aditya Birla, there is Optima Secure by HDFC Ergo and there are many more such plans as well. All of these are largely available from true to 99 years of age. You can take some insured from five lakhs to one crore and even more. You can opt for a lot of riders to make it future proof. I think that is one important point that we haven't spoken about is yet. So in terms of checklist I think you should try and make your plan future proof because let's say if you buy a 10 lakhs some insured today, today it's enough but is it enough let's say five years later and 10 years later the answer is no because medical inflation is real. So you should try to buy a plan whose sum insured also increases every year automatically and it takes care of inflation that happens in the future. Another very important checklist item would be taking consumable coverage when you buy your health insurance policy. Consumables means things like gloves, syringes, everything that gets consumed during your hospitalization. Sanitizer is an example. All of this adds up to 10 to 15 percent of your total hospitalization bill and by default is not covered in your health insurance policy. So very very important that you take this rider doesn't cost much and gets you covered as well. There is more and it depends on everybody's persona what is their exact requirements etc but I would say these are top three four things that one must look at and one must try to maximize some insurance. So given a choice between say buying a higher sum insured policy or having an option to let's say go to the top hospitals of the country or not, I would always first optimize for a higher sum insured because honestly a luxury hospital is not a necessity but having a high sum insured is a necessity and then if you have all the money then you can always go to luxury hospitals as well. So again these are some of the things which one must look at as you choose and decide which health insurance plan to have. Absolutely and to give a food analogy I think it's become very clear from this conversation that health insurance is not a standard buffet for everybody. Now it's become a nice nuanced a la carte industry. You pick and choose what's suitable for you and what you want to pay for and what you really need. So go ahead and invest that kind of time in doing a bit of research and getting the right health insurance coverage. I think the advice that both our guests have given today will go a long way in helping people make the right choice. So Amit as well as Mahavir, thank you so much for joining in. Wish you once again a very very happy new year 2025 and look forward to seeing you on the show again soon. Thank you. Thank you. All right with that it is curtains on this edition of Let's Talk Money. Thank you so much for joining in. Wish all of our viewers a very very very happy, wealthy, healthy and prosperous 2025. See you again with more wealth themes and ideas next year. Let's Talk Money.