What is an Individual Health Insurance?
An individual health insurance is a type of health insurance policy customized for a single person; typically, for people below the age of 40 years to safeguard and cover oneself from various illnesses, hospitalization, and other medical emergencies that may arise during your lifetime.
While an individual health insurance is essentially designed for young people without families, you can still opt to cover for dependents such as your senior parents, spouse and two children.
Additionally, if you’re planning to get married and have kids soon, you may also opt for the maternity benefit in advance, to make sure you complete the waiting period just in time.
Why should I take up an Individual Health Insurance online?
Health insurances have often been looked at as complex and ambiguous. More often than not, people have purchased health insurance policies only for tax benefits, without really looking at its other, more relevant advantages; such as how it protects and safeguards you against various illnesses and medical emergencies.
However, the times have now changed and thankfully today a lot of health insurances are now digital. This not only makes the entire process of buying a health insurance easy but, also gives you the flexibility to learn more about it, compare health insurance plans online, and further even customize your plans as per your personal needs, with just a few clicks and no paperwork at all!
Why should you trust Digit for your Individual Health Insurance?
Health Insurance Made Easy Online: One of the main benefits of Digit is that, everything from buying a health insurance to making claims is digital friendly. This means, you can buy and customize your health insurance plan at the comfort of your home. Additionally, these online processes ensure everything is transparent, so you know exactly what to expect.
Cashless Settlements Available: A cashless settlement means you can make claims without having to pay from your pocket. This not only makes your claim process easier but, also ensures you don’t need to worry about shelling money yourself. The same is only possible when you use the services of a hospital that are part of Digit’s network.
Wide Network of Hospitals: To benefit from cashless settlements, you need a good range of hospitals made available. Fortunately, Digit offers its policyholders a wide range of partner hospitals to choose from, all over India.
Customized Health Plans: When you buy a health insurance online with Digit, you get the benefit to customize your health insurance plan based on your personal requirements and needs. For example; you can also customize your Sum Insured for one policy term. After all, you know yourself better than anyone else.
Cares about your Physical & Mental Health: At Digit, we not only provide coverages for your physical health but, also cover for your mental health. After all, we believe the two go hand in hand in maintaining one’s overall health and well-being.
Compare Individual Health Insurance Plans
If you’ve never bought a health insurance online, we know this could probably get a tad bit confusing for you. But, that’s why we’ve always kept our insurance simple and here we’ll give you a quick guide on how to compare different health insurance plans online and eventually make the right choice.
Sum Insured: The most important bit! After all, this entails the amount you’ll receive at the time of your claims. Therefore, opt wisely for a viable sum insured and don’t get fooled into buying just any health insurance policies due to low premiums (this would usually mean, the sum insured too is less!)
Real Benefits: Please read the policy terms & conditions before buying an individual health insurance plan, as a lot of benefits look fancy but when you get to their conditions you may realize that claiming them is tough because of the ifs and buts associated with them.
Claim Settlement Record: Always look at a health insurance company’s claim settlement record. What are the processes? How quick are they with claims? Is it simple? Is it completely digital or involves paperwork? Having these clarifications right from the start will ensure you pick what suits you the best and make a sound choice accordingly.
Premium: Of course, this is something you will definitely do! But make sure you don’t just pick the cheapest health insurance only because it comes with a low premium but, look at the sum insured, benefits, services, etc and decide on what seems like the most valuable option of it all.
What is Cashless Claim?
As the name suggests, a cashless claim is when you won’t be required to pay anything from your pocket. However, this is only possible if you’re being treated at one of our network hospitals.
How to settle a cashless health claim?
1. Get in touch with us via phone call or email, before 72 hours of the hospitalization in case of a planned hospitalization or, within 24 hours of the hospitalization in case of an emergency.
2. Share your health card/copy of e-card along with an ID proof with the concerned hospital authority and obtain the pre-authorization form from the hospital.
3. Fill in the form, sign and submit to the concerned hospital authority.
4. Ensure that the hospital shares your signed form to the Third-Party Administrator (TPA) or Service Provider for further processing.
5. Once your form is processed, the TPA will issue an authorization letter after confirming the claim along with your policy terms and conditions directly with the hospital.
6. Once everything is approved and you have a go-ahead, the required treatment must take place within 15 days from the date the respective form was filled in.
What is Reimbursement Claim?
One of the most common claims used is the reimbursement claim. This is mainly because, whether you go to one of our network hospitals or not, this kind of claim can be used at any hospital in India. All you have to is submit required documents in due time and receive the reimbursement amount from us.
What is the process to settle a reimbursement claim?
1. Inform us or the TPA within 48 hours of hospitalization or treatment for which you’re using the hospital services.
2. Submit all original documents and bills related to your hospitalization or treatment within 30 days of discharge.
3. Our team will go through the documents submitted and reimburse the required amount within 30 days. In case we don’t, we’ll be liable to pay an interest of an additional 2% than the current bank interest rate to you.
How the premium is calculated for Individual Health Insurance policy?
A lot people often wonder...after all, how is my health insurance premium calculated? Based on a combination of various factors, your health insurance premium is defined by the following:
1. Your age: While health conditions are on a rise for both people young and old, younger people are still a lot healthier. Additionally, the younger you are, the more time you have to complete your waiting period for things such as maternity benefits and critical illnesses. Therefore, the younger you are, the lesser is your premium! Now you know why people advise the young generation to get a health insurance early in life!
2. Lifestyle: Everything just depends on our lifestyles today, doesn’t it? Likewise, our health too is dependent on the different lifestyle choices we make. Based on both habits good and bad, your health insurance premium too will be affected by it.
So please make sure you declare everything about yourself. Right from whether you’re a gym junkie to whether you’re a smoker or not. Even if you try to get away with incorrect details here, it will most likely be determined during your claims and your claim might just be nullified altogether!
3. Pre-existing Diseases or Conditions: In case of a condition, ailment or injury for which you’ve already been experiencing signs and symptoms at least about 48 months prior to your previous policy, needs to be declared while purchasing or renewing your individual health insurance policy. Based on the kind of condition, ailment or injury; your health insurance premium may be affected accordingly.
4. Location: Your health insurance premium will be affected by the place you live in because different cities have different pollution levels, accident risks and medical costs. For example; people living in North India are a lot more prone to lung diseases, due to the high percentage of pollution and decreasing air quality.
5. Add-ons and Covers: To make sure your health insurance plan is suited just for you and the life you want to lead, your individual health insurance gives you the option to opt for specific covers as additional shields.
Some of these covers include the Critical Illness Cover, Maternity and Infertility Benefit, etc. According to the covers you choose, your health insurance premium too will be affected by it.
How to choose the right sum insured?
Age: Choose a higher sum insured if you’re planning to get married soon. The younger you are, the lower your premiums will be and most of your waiting periods (such as for the maternity benefit) too will be over just in time.
Life Stage: Choose your sum insured based on the stage of life you feel like you’re in. Are you suffering from some health conditions, how are your immunity levels, how physically fit are you, are you single, do you plan to get married soon, are you planning to start a family, etc.
No. of Dependents: While an individual health insurance is designed for you, you also have the option to add dependents such as your parents, spouse and kids. Based on the number of dependents, pick a sum insured accordingly as the more dependents you have under your plan, the more money you’d need whilst making health claims.
Existing Health Conditions: If there is a hereditary disease in your family or a common health condition you’ve known is rising in your city, you may want to then choose a higher sum insured.
Your Lifestyle: If you live in a polluted metro city, toiling with traffic and bearing office stress every day, you may be at a higher risk of falling ill. Which in turn means, you need to cover yourself for the better and hence in this case, it would be wiser to go for a higher sum insured.
What to look for in an Individual Health Insurance?
Customer Reviews & Testimonials: Trust the people who have already used the service. Look for reviews on social media or your insurance service provider’s website to learn more about people’s experiences with the said brand.
Network of Hospitals: One of the main benefits of a health insurance policy is that, you could get cashless settlements by using the insurance provider’s network of hospitals. Therefore, look for the kind of hospitals in their network and how convenient they are for you.
Claim Process: The whole point of buying a health insurance is so that you can benefit from making medical claims. Therefore, do look at the claim processes involved with your insurer. Does it involve a lot of paperwork? Is it digital friendly? Is it time consuming, etc.?
Coverage Benefits: Every health insurance plan will differ according to the insurance provider and your personal preferences. Therefore, look at the kind of coverage you’re getting and whether that’s enough for you or not.
Other Benefits: Look at service benefits and other additional benefits your insurer provides apart from the basic coverage.
What is the best age to buy an Individual Health Insurance?
Honestly, the earlier the better. That way, you’ll have a lower premium and would also cross the waiting period for select benefits. We live in a time where health issues are on a rise, mental health issues amongst millennials are constantly going higher and health expenses aren’t getting any lower!
Save Income tax with an Individual Health Insurance
Apart from safeguarding your health, a health insurance also benefits you in maximizing your savings further by giving you the benefit of tax exemptions. This can be done in the following ways:
a. Through Preventive Health Checkups: As per the Income Tax Act, Section 80D- an individual can get a tax exemption of up to Rs 25,000 on the expenses incurred for preventive health checkups in one policy period.
b. Include your parents in your health insurance plan: According to Section 80D in the Income Tax Act, if one includes their parents as dependents in a health insurance plan or, pays premium for their senior health insurance; they can be exempted from taxes to up to Rs 50,000 every year.
c. Avoid cash payment for your health insurance premium: To claim tax exemptions on your health insurance, it’s necessary that all payments towards your health insurance premium must be done through bank transfers, debit/credit cards or online/net banking methods since cash payments won’t be considered for your tax savings.
