Health insurance plans for senior citizens are generally restricted to the maximum age of 65. Along with that, the coverage amount for insurance is also around 5 lakhs, which is too low when compared to the city lifestyle. For senior citizens over 65 who are looking for an insurance policy or those who are seeking the said insurance for their parents, this is not an end. They just need to explore a bit more about the various health insurance options which will cover the requirements they wish.
The key point, however, remains that the premiums of health insurance keep on increasing with age. This implies that a beforehand knowledge of what the premiums will cost for the coming 10 or 15 years is something which needs to be evaluated first. Doing this can keep your finance well-organized. Based on your own income and suitability, opt for what would be the best medical insurance plan for senior citizens for you.
However, there are certain ways in which you could minimize the premium amount in your insurance cover. Following are some of the ideas or plans which you can keep into consideration before opting for health insurance plans for senior citizens.
Normal Or Specific Plans
Health insurance companies offer two types of plans: normal ones and specific or dedicated ones. In the normal one, more than one family member is covered or where there is no fixed age specification in the insurance policy. Dedicated health insurance is where insurance policies are made for a definitive or specific purpose. Health insurance plans for senior citizens is one such example. Normal health plans are considered more cost-effective than dedicated plans. Therefore, the premiums one has to pay for them is also considerably lower than the specific plans. Also, in the normal plans, the young ones of the family can also share the premium burden with a lesser probability of making a health claim. It is, therefore, more feasible to go for normal plans over senior citizen specific health plans.
Choosing the optimum health insurance plan for your parents at an optimal cost will keep everyone happy.
The thing to be noted here is that the underwriting standards of a normal health insurance plan are relatively higher than that of dedicated plans. This means that the senior citizens may have less chance of getting included in the insurance cover. However, as long as there are chances, one should opt for them. Only when there is a clear no, should senior citizens go for the specific plans.
Co-payment Option
At the age of retirement, salaries are reduced to savings. Keeping up with high amounts of premiums may become a bit difficult. One, therefore, should look for ways to save as much on the premium amount. One of the best ways to do that is to opt for co-payment options. What this implies is that during the claim, the insurer will have to pay part of the expenses and the rest will be covered by the insurance company. Since the insurance company will not be covering the entire expenses, the premium amount they charge will also be lower in this case.
If your savings are enough to cover the said percentage of the insurance claim expense then you should go for the co-payment option.
Base cover vs Critical Illness Cover
Since critical illnesses take the better lot of your savings, it is more prudent to have a health insurance cover which takes into consideration a better part of critical illness. Instead of going for a base cover, try to split the insurance in a way where 25% of the claim can be made on basic illness while the rest of 75% will be made on critical illness. This multiple insurance cover will come off cheaper than the insurance policy which is solely constituted of the base cover.
Top Up vs Super Top-up
Another way to reduce the premium is to opt for a super top-up plan. The difference between a super top-up plan and a top-up plan is that in the former, the deductible limit of the hospital bill is made on the basis of the policy year whereas, in the latter, the hospital bill should be more than the deductible limit. To make it clear, this means that if in a top-up plan your deductible limit is 6 lakhs and your hospital bills are around 9 lakhs but they are split between 5 hospitals then you will not get the claim. This is because your deductible limit did not exceed in any one hospital. In the super top-up plan, on the other hand, the cover will be made by the insurance company as the total amount exceeded the deductible limit in the policy year.
Though it has to be kept into consideration that most insurance companies do not give low deductible limits for a high health insurance claim. The best thing would be to go for a base cover along with the super-top.
These are some of the ways in which you can reduce your premiums while opting for health insurance plans for senior citizens. There are also other options, one of which is family floaters that you can consider before applying for health insurance. The point, in any case, is to get the best at the lowest.
