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good time to get a family health insurance?

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19 Jul, 2021 by  kushal bhansali

i am 23 M, living in Mumbai


we have a family of 4 (my parents, my younger brother and me)


my dad has a family floater health insurance from Care Health for the past several years and we are happy with the product, however, there is one downside to it that after the age of 62 (for the eldest member; dad is 50 currently) the policy turns into a Co-Pay Product

the four of us are covered under this policy


my question is - is this a good time to get a new family policy in my (23M) name so I can lock in the premium cost and have a good product by the time dad turns 62 which is in the next 12 years.


disc- we will be continuing with dads policy until I am married (after which we will get another policy in my younger brothers name, too, so my parents are covered dually and we have more leeway for their medicals costs if any!)

this extra policy is just to safeguard and get a plan early on because we have disposable income.


please tell me your thoughts


thank you for your time, you guys are a boon to the fraternity!


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Health Insurance
Parents-Health-Insurance
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2 Answer

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19 Jul, 2021
Chartered Accountant, Personal Finance Advisor

Hey Kushal,


Good to know that you are thinking about health insurance at young age.


I would recommend staying with the current health insurance plan for all 4 in the family. It is advisable to increase the Sum Assured for the family floater you are covered in. In case you are unable to increase the sum assured in the existing policy it is advisable to buy a super top up family floater cover for the entire family.


You can continue to cover yourself in the family floater till you are mandatorily required to take a separate cover or you get married (opt for plan that covers maternity benefit), whichever is earlier.


Your brother can continue in the existing policy and can take a separate cover as per above once he crosses the mandatory age.


You can allocate the extra funds you are planning to spend to buy additional policies towards creating an emergency fund which will fill in the co payment required to be paid in future which is at least 12 years away.


What you can do right now is check if your existing policy has room rent capping and other sub-limits. If so, migrate or port to a policy that doesn't have room rent capping.


Hope this addresses your concerns. In case you have any follow up questions feel free to post here.


Stay Safe


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20 Jul, 2021
kushal bhansali
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20 Jul, 2021
Co-founder, SureClaim

Hey Kushal,


You're reading rules all wrong. Since your dad is 50 now, he's entered the policy before the age of 60. And therefore, lifelong you can renew this policy and there will NEVER be any copay for him, whatever be his age.


Since you are 25, you must be added in this policy as a dependent child, and there is a max age cap on dependent children to be covered in a floater policy. Run a check till what age are you allowed to be in this policy, afterwards you'll be ported out from this plan and you can continue running an individual plan with CHI. Once you get married, you can add your spouse to the same plan in future.


I don't think you need to worry about anything with regards to this policy.


Also let me break a myth here - You can NEVER lock premium of a health insurance policy. The premiums increase based on age band (next one coming when your dad celebrates his 55th birthday), based on premium revisions (every 3-4 years insurers fix their rates as a response to medical inflation) and based on product changes (recently IRDA asked insurers to drop several exclusions from policies and that led to price hikes across the board).


Anuj

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20 Jul, 2021
kushal bhansali
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