Selecting a Medical Insurance for self and family.

1. Medical insurance is required to meet the medical expenses for self and family members. The best policy should be affordable and should cover maximum health problems. These days the medical expenses are becoming very high and for a common man meeting those expenses is becoming very difficult. So medical insurance is becoming a necessity.

2. A health insurance plan covers hospitalisation expenses, pre-post hospitalisation expenses, ambulance charges, compensation for the lost income, etc. depending on the policy you have taken. Medical insurance is only for hospitalisation expenses. Life insurance is for your life.

3. Before selecting a policy we should look into the various terms and conditions of the policy. It is better to study the various policies available with various companies and select the best among the available. The following are some of the important policies.
1. Religare Care
2. Max BUPA Health Companion
3. Star Family Health Optima
4. Apollo Munich Optima Restore Family
5. HDFC Health Suraksha
6. Bajaj Allianz Family Floater Health-Guard
7. Oriental Insurance Happy Family Floater
8. SBI LifeSmart Health Insurance

4. The minimum amount of insurance should be decided based on the number of family members, their ages and general health conditions.

5. There are no hidden costs in insurance policies.

6. The illnesses which require high expenses are to be covered under these insurance policies.

The detailed responses to this query on matters of medical, health and life insurance are as follows -
a) Health is wealth. It is the most important thing in our life and we have to take measures to take safeguard it in all conditions. When we fall ill it sometimes so happens that the medical expenses are very high and beyond our financial conditions and in such times if we had some health insurance policy then it could help us to a great extent in mitigating the situation. That is the main reason in our life for going to subscribe to a health insurance policy.

b) Medical or health insurance policy mainly covers the risk of falling ill in one's life and these insurance covers are very handy for payment of the hospital admission and treatment charges to the hospitals directly by the insurance companies. Life insurance on the other hand is mainly to cover the risk of untimely death of the person and in that case the insurance company would pay the assured sum to the dependent member or nominated member.

c) One has to keep the expected medical expenses in the future of one's life and in view of that has to go for a medical insurance. It is difficult to predict whether a person would fall ill or not as that is hidden in the deep future but that is the uncertainty which forces one to go for a medical insurance. It is imperative that in view of this hidden danger in our life we have no other option except to go for the insurance. Medical policies come in different configurations and one has to go through the terms and conditions of insurance minutely to decide which type of policy one might opt for. One should try to get maximum sum assured against the minimum premium paid. At the same time the limits on the reimbursement should not be too severe otherwise the person would have to shell out a major part from his pocket in case one gets hospitalised.

d) The premium of the insurance policy depends upon the number of diseases included in the policy plan in addition to the severe and ordinary diseases. The minimum amount of instance amount would be different for different insurance providers but on an average, a policy would seek an annual premium of Rs 5000 to 10000 for a person in age group 30-35 while it could go as high as Rs 18000 to 40000 for people in age group of 60-65.

e) When a person falls ill the hospital sends the treatment bill to the insurance company and as per the terms and conditions of the plan the company would deduct some of the charges from the bill which are not admissible and hence pay a smaller amount to the hospital and hospital in turn would ask this from the patient. So though this thing is told at the time of taking policy but the gullible customers do not know these details thoroughly and have to pay these hidden cost themselves.

f) Some insurance companies do not give insurance for some fatal diseases like cancer or lever ailments. Other might cover it but premium would increase. So a person has to consider it that whether he should include it in the policy or not. If there is no history of cancer in the family one can take a chance to exclude it from the policy.

g) There are many insurance companies but their ratio of claim settlement with respect to the premium paid is almost same. The companies which give full reimbursement would charge a higher premium while those which have a limit on various hospital expenses would charge a smaller premium. There is one ratio called ICR which can be checked for the company to have an idea of its effective service to the insured. ICR is defined as the ratio of 'Amount settled as claims' and 'Amount collected as premium'. Another ratio is Claim settlement ratio which is the ratio of claims settled to claims accepted. So, these ratios can be used to ascertain the reputation of the company.