If you have a health policy, the prospect of paying a huge sum out of pocket will sound totally ludicrous to you. And yet, this is what is happening. Even those that have health insurance do not have enough cover. The whole situation is exacerbated by the rising cost of health care at 20% a year. Not enough health coverage is an issue most policyholders need to address. How do they do it?
One obvious way to increase the cover is by getting a separate health policy of a higher cover amount. Very well. But you will have to keep in mind that this is not the most affordable way to do it. A cover of 15 lacs will cost you upwards of Rs. 10,000 in premium. Is there any cheaper way? Absolutely, there is!
Heard of super top-up plans?
Super top up plans are policies that kick in once you’ve made claims up to a threshold limit. One can also call them ‘plans with a high deductible’. Get it with an example. You take a super top up plan of cover amount Rs 10 lacs with Rs 3 lacs deductible. That means once you’ve paid Rs 3 lacs, you can use your super top up policy to claim the rest 7 lacs.
Read more about super top-up plans
Understand the deductible
To understand how deductible is calculated, consider the following example: You’ve two policies- A mediclaim policy of Rs 3 lacs and a super top–up plan of Rs 10 lacs with deductible Rs 3 lacs. Let’s suppose you make 5 claims in a year the following way-
Claim 1 (1 lakh): Mediclaim policy will cover it.
Claim 2 (2 lakh): Mediclaim policy will cover it. You also exhausted your mediclaim policy cover.
Claim 3 (3 lakh): Super top up plan will cover it as you’ve already paid the aggregate deductible (1+2 = 3 lacs) through mediclaim policy.
Claim 4 (4 lakh): Super top up plan will cover it.
Claim 5 (1 lakh): None of the policies will cover it. You exhausted your total cover of 10 lacs (1+2+3+4).
Don’t worry, it’s affordable
Super top up policies are affordable for all. This is clear from the fact that premium charged for a 10 lacs policy is Rs 2-3k.
Read more about Separate health insurance plans for parents of floater?
Read also An anatomy of an health insurance plan
Read more about Dejargonizing health insurance terms
