Benefit From Insurance Riders

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, high associated medical costs, medical treatments and extended hospitalisations have highlighted the importance of adequate health insurance cover. It has also pushed most people to review their existing policies to see if they are underinsured and enhance their existing coverages and limits.

Leaving a wide protection gap in terms of coverage can leave you vulnerable to making a substantial financial dent into your savings. Therefore, it is important to look at additional coverages that do not come within the existing features of a health insurance policy but have to be added separately in exchange for an additional premium. Add-ons or riders can be taken on and above your existing health insurance policy to increase its benefits or sum insured to be availed on account of pre-determined events.

Let us go through some of the essential add-ons that cover the existing health insurance plan.

1. Critical illness cover:

The critical illness plan provides you coverage against critical illnesses such as cancer, kidney failure, heart attack, stroke and others. With a critical illness plan, you become eligible to receive a lump sum amount on diagnosis of any critical illness covered under the policy. It helps to compensate the insured to make up for the loss of income due to the illness.

2. Hospital cash:

This plan takes care of all the non-medical and out-of-pocket expenses incurred at the time of hospitalization. While your regular health insurance policy will pay for the hospitalisation expenses, many incidental expenses may not be covered. It will pay a fixed benefit amount for each day of hospitalisation to take care of such incidental expenses and reduce out-of-pocket expenditure. The amount can range from Rs 500-Rs 3000 per day. Moreover, in the case of ICU hospitalisation, the benefit amount will be doubled.

3. Super top-up plan

At a time when medical expenses are out of reach, a super top-up plan will supplement your existing health insurance planwhere you can go for a higher sum insured over and above a deductible limit. If your current plan has a sum insured of Rs 5 lakh and you get a top-up plan of Rs 7 lakh, you can use your top-up plan once your existing sum assured is exhausted. So if you register a claim of Rs 6 lakh, then it will exhaust Rs 5 lakh from your existing plan and then opt for the additional Rs 1 lakh from your top-up plan.

4. Vector insurance

Due to the tropical and sub-tropical climate in India, cases of vector-borne diseases like malaria, dengue and chikungunya have been on a constant rise. These diseases spread through mosquitoes and affect many people in India every year, often requiring hospitalisations. One can consider buying a vector insurance cover as it provides a lump sum benefit if the insured is diagnosed and hospitalised due to severe diseases caused by vectors.

Keeping your requirement, income, and age in mind, opt for the above riders as it provides you with required additional coverage.

The author is Chief Operating Officer, Future Generali India Insurance