From the time you were born, your parents have been your support system. They bore the responsibility of bringing you up, giving you a good lifestyle and ensure you get quality education to secure your future. However, after a certain point in life, our parents need our attention like good medical assistance and taking care of them when they get fragile with age. That’s when it’s important to buy a good health insurance plan for them.
Remember, the earlier you buy a policy for your parents, the better will be the benefits. Many products have restrictions in cover if the individual enters into coverage at a higher age. Many insurers have a mandatory co-payment clause if the age of entry is higher.
The Indian insurance market is currently flooded with healthcare plans specifically designed for senior citizens or elderly parents over 60 years of age. And many insurance providers also offer family floater healthcare plans specifically designed for families consisting of senior citizens.
There are a number of factors that need to be taken into account to determine the best health insurance policy for parents in India-
What You Should Look For?
- AGE LIMIT: If it provides cover for anyone over the age of 60 and permits entry right up to the age of 80 and guaranteed renewal thereafter. The points of senior citizen health insurance comparison can be max age at renewability.
Why You want to cover your parents for as long as it’s possible: The older one gets, more the expenses mount. Hence, when picking a plan for your folks, check till what age the plan can be renewed. Options are few, going wrong once could mean not being able to get health insurance later.
- PRE EXISTING ILLNESS: It should be covered subject to terms and conditions. No senior citizen health insurance in India will cover everything from the word go. It’s tricky to cover health for older people. So a lot of clauses exist, which exclude certain pre-exisitng conditions or ailments. You need to check that after running the policy for a few years, do such illnesses start getting covered?
Why you need to ensure that the exclusion list is the smallest possible: Smallest possible when you buy and has potential to become smaller after a few continuous years of coverage. Older you get, multiple conditions or ailments spring up. A smaller exclusion list could be a life saver then.
- CRITICAL ILLNESS COVERAGE: The Critical Illnesses or treatments like Coronary Artery Surgery, Cancer, Renal Failure and Stroke are not only emotionally hard to handle but financially too, they can take a huge toll. These big ones are dangerous as normal plans are never enough to handle them. Especially, if you are looking for quality health care. Look for a critical illness top-up with your basic senior citizen health insurance. These top-ups come at small price compared to the basic plan, but that small price is truly small in the scheme of things.
Health insurance for your loved ones acts as a safety net. Health Insurance plans offer a variety of financial benefits because the chance of hospitalization increases as aging progresses and thus let you focus on giving care and comfort to your parents
As an added benefit to the safety of your parents as per the Indian tax laws you could claim for a deduction in the taxes too for parental insurance upto Rs. 50,000 in certain conditions.