How to Purchase a Senior Citizen Health Insurance Plan

Last Updated on November 15th, 2022

Here’s What you should know before purchasing a Senior Citizen Health Insurance Plan

A health Insurance Plan is more like a necessity nowadays, especially when it has to be planned for a senior citizen. After retirement, life becomes very dull and boring and living solely on pension or interest income is tough. An unexpected medical emergency can put one in a state of financial crisis where you may have to struggle for the most basic needs. This is why purchasing a health insurance plan holds utmost significance  in order to battle times such as these.. A comprehensive senior citizen mediclaim policy is best suited to meet such urgencies. A senior citizen health insurance policy is valid for senior citizens who are 65 years of age and above.

With so many policies available in the market, you can always compare the best ones based on given few factors.

-Lowest Premium

-Online flexibility

-Facilities post claim and during the tenure.

-Revision process if involved in the policy

-Coverage period and value

According to the new IRDA guidelines, individuals can switch insurers in case they are not satisfied with their current senior citizen insurance providers. However, the challenge to choose the right one still remains as it is not always easy to shift from one insurer to other and it also includes some extra charges.

Thus, it is important to conduct a proper mediclaim policy comparison of various  insurance policies, in order to ensure a hassle-free retirement life.. With the help of online comparison, it has become easy to make a quick decision without physically having to go anywhere.

The mediclaim policies ensure that you are protected in terms of health and financial backup during emergency times, thus allowing you to live a happy and satisfied retirement life.

Various things to consider when you are choosing health insurance for senior citizens.

How much is the Cover: The assured sum is usually less in public insurance companies’ cases but with a private insurer you can get up to Rs 20 lakh of coverage as well. Also, with a high cover, they have high premiums to bear as well.

Co-payments policy: It defines that the policyholder has to bear a certain percentage of amount claimed and the remaining will be settled by the insurer. The percentage is usually small within the range of 15 to 20 percent but it also depends on the amount of coverage taken and as well as the amount claimed during the insurance period.

Age bound for renewal: – Few insurance companies restrict the age from 60 to 69 in terms of granting a senior citizen policy. So, it becomes difficult to get a mediclaim policy after the age of 69. The age limits for renewal of plans differs from company to company.

What all is covered: Few insurance companies take into account the existing health issues and problems and add them to the insurance policy while few companies do not cover the pre-existing disease or health problems and these need to be checked before buying any policy in the market.

Free-look Period: It is the time period in which the insurance contract can be made null and void by a person if he or she does not like or agree with the terms and conditions and wants to discontinue the policy with the insurer. During this period, the person won’t be penalized with insurance dropping charges of any kind. Usually policyholders can make this decision within 15 days or 30 days of receiving the documents. 

Some employers in today’s IT sector provide their employees with the flexibility to add their parents in the company provided insurance plans that are usually the group insurance coverage plans. This helps them in covering most of the things at one place but not all have this privilege of company provided insurance plans for parents too. So, others have to search for a good insurance plan in the senior citizen category for their parents. Also, in some cases the company provided group insurance plans might not be good enough to take care of all the factors and thus they might also want to look out for the best options.

A few important things that need to be considered while thinking of purchasing and doing Mediclaim Policy Comparison for your Parents.

• Checking the claim process in the policy: Claim settlement ratio and claim settlement time are the 2 most important factors that need to be considered and compared before buying the policy. Higher claim ratio and minimum claim time means better policy and quick format to go for.

• Day care services and methods: Best day care techniques should be compared, and one must check if the mediclaim requires hospitalization for claiming the bills or not. Many policies nowadays do not require compulsory 24 hours of hospitalization for claiming the insurance as was the case earlier.

• List of Hospitals: With every policy comes a list of hospitals that the insurer can grant you claims for. Always check the list and conduct a check of your nearby and best hospitals if they are covered in the list or not. Sometimes the hospitals included in the list do not have the medical services that one may require.

• Claims for Pre and post Hospitalizations: A lot of expenses have to be met post hospitalizations which include regular visits for checkup and doctor follow ups for medications and health examinations which need to be covered in the claims. The expenses that are relevant to the treatment for which the insurance holder was admitted to the hospital must be considered in the policy claims.

• Premium on Policy: Usually the premium on the senior citizen mediclaim policy is high due to the age factor associated with it. This needs to be checked before buying the policy and accepting terms and conditions on the same.

• Free health Checkups: Few insurance providers offer free health checkups (once in a year) to the policy holders as a part of the plan and help them reason out any health issues before it is too late to recover.

Use these basic filtering factors based on your need and requirement, you can easily pick the best policy option for your family. Before you purchase any policy, make sure you are buying the policy from a genuine insurance firm and conduct a basic background check on the policy reviews and claims closure made by these insurance companies in previous years.

We hope you are able to understand the basic details of the plan keeping in mind your needs while selecting the best policy in the market for your parents and family.

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Anurag Ajmera

Fitness and Health is an area of my interest. I like to read and write about fitness niche in my spare time.Work towards Natural Remedies and Healthy Lifestyle.I sometimes also like to write on other blogs like quikrpost.com.

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