How to Increase Your Health Insurance Coverage at Lower Cost?

A health insurance policy is an important financial safety shield that keeps your savings safe in case of any unforeseen medical issues. Thus, having a wide-ranging insurance policy is always a good idea, especially with the growing cost of treatment.

Many people are concerned about the premium, as increasing their coverage might result in a higher premium. However, there are several ways to get higher coverage while ensuring your premium is affordable. Policyholders can enhance their protection by understanding how to increase health insurance coverage effectively.

Yes, it is possible to increase the sum assured. When renewing your policy, click on the edit option next to the sum insured by your health insurance policy and increase the cover amount. Do note that your premium will also increase if you opt for a higher sum insured.

Most insurance companies allow policyholders to enhance their coverage during policy renewal. This can be done by opting for a higher sum insured or adding riders for additional protection. It’s important to review your current coverage, assess your healthcare needs, and consult with your insurer to understand the process and any potential impact on premiums.

To increase your health insurance coverage, you can take several steps to ensure comprehensive protection against medical expenses.

1. Upgrade Your Existing Policy

Contact your insurance provider to discuss upgrading your current policy to a higher plan with better benefits. This might include a higher sum insured, more extensive hospital networks, or additional coverage for critical illnesses.

2. Increase the Sum Insured

Request an increase in the sum insured to cover higher medical expenses. This ensures you have enough financial coverage for significant health emergencies or treatments without exhausting your savings.

3. Choose a Family Floater Plan

If you have dependents, switching to a family floater plan can increase coverage for the entire family under a single policy. This plan can be more cost-effective while providing higher coverage limits for each member.

4. Review Policy Terms Regularly

Review your policy terms and conditions to ensure they meet your needs. Life changes such as ageing, marriage, or having children may require adjustments to your coverage.

5. Consider Top-Up or Super Top-Up Plans

Explore top-up or super top-up plans to increase your coverage without drastically increasing your premium. These plans provide additional coverage once your base policy's sum insured is exhausted.

1. Increase Your Existing Sum Insured

Almost all insurers will give you the option to increase the sum insured of your existing policy at the time of renewal. While it will slightly increase your premium, this way you can ensure that you have adequate coverage for your and your family’s medical needs without paying too much out-of-pocket. An advantage of doing this is that you will not have to face any waiting period for the increased sum insured amount (as you might have to do with a new policy).

Generally, for an individual, it is recommended to have a cover of at least ₹5 lakh, while for a family with one child you should aim for a minimum cover of ₹20 lakh.

2. Opt for Top-Up or Super Top-Up Plans

Top-up or super top-up plans are another way to ensure higher coverage without paying a large premium. These plans will provide coverage even if you finish your original sum insured amount. This is done by splitting your cover into two parts, one is the pre-decided limit of the original health plan, and a secondary cover. With this additional cover, you will be able to raise a higher claim.

3. Long-Term Healthcare Insurance Policy

Generally, it is better to opt for a long-term insurance policy, for example, one with a 2-3 year tenure, rather than one with the regular annual term. This is because such long-term policies tend to have lower premium payments.

You can find these long-term policies with many insurers, thus it is important to compare the policies they offer and choose one best suited to your requirements.

4. Buy the Right Add-On Covers

Additional covers (also called add-ons or riders) offer further coverage to your existing health insurance policy. Popular add-ons include Maternity cover, Room Rent waiver, Critical Illness Cover, and Personal Accident cover.

While you might know that these covers are only available at an additional premium, however, the IRDAI has mandated that the total premium for all the add-ons bought under a single health policy cannot exceed 30% of the original premium amount. Thus, if the premium is ₹5,000/year, the additional premium you will need to pay for add-ons cannot exceed ₹1,500.

So, if you already require certain add-ons like Maternity cover or Critical Illness cover, you can opt to purchase a few more at very little extra cost.

5. Get Health Insurance at an Early Age

Another way to ensure that your premium payments remain low is to buy a health insurance plan when you’re still young.  Since factors like your age and medical history are used to calculate the premium, and the chances of age-related diseases like diabetes and heart conditions increase as you get older, insurers will increase premium amounts for older customers.

But, getting a policy early will ensure that your premiums remain lower, and you will also get cumulative bonuses for claim-free years.

6. Get a Cumulative Bonus

If you don’t make any claims during a policy year, your insurer will offer you a cumulative bonus (also called a no-claim bonus). This might give you either a discount on your premium or an added amount to your sum insured at the same premium. Thus, you will either be able to pay a lower premium or get more coverage at the same cost.

Choosing a good health insurance company is one of the first steps to prioritise before increasing insurance coverage. Below are tips to help you select a health insurance company.

• Verify the information an insurance company provides by reading articles and reviews on its services.
• Ensure that the insurance company has various plans that are available based on your preference.
• Confirm whether they offer a cashless hospitalisation facility. This will eliminate the stress of making long queues to hand over reimbursement bills.
• Be sure that the time frame for coverage of pre-existing diseases is relatively minimal. This reduces the liability, to a certain degree, if you have an existing health issue.
• Sometimes, the exit age limit for the policy may be old.