Going to be a Parent Soon? How to Choose Health Insurance Coverage for Your Little One

Congrats! Your little baby is on the way and you and your family couldn’t be more excited! Being a parent is exciting but also a huge responsibility and you want to do your best. You want to provide your baby with a healthy, happy childhood that all children deserve! Amongst all of the things that you must be busy with for the preparation of welcoming a new life to the world, you must find some time out of your busy schedule to make sure that you gift your baby a healthy and secured future. After all, everything you probably want right now is the baby to be born healthy! This article will help you do just that, by equipping you with the knowledge and the resources about the powerful weapon against potential unfortunate circumstances, that we call health insurance. 

Why Does Your Newborn Needs Insurance?

Being a parent is all about enjoying the current moment while planning for any possible exigencies in the future. So, while we can only hope that the baby is born healthy and happy, we must plan for the likely exigencies well in advance. And a good health insurance policy for your newborn enables you to do just that. Here’s 3 reasons why a comprehensive health insurance policy would be in the best interest of your new family member:

1. Reduced Hospital Bills 

While this may sound like a dream come true, this is the reality, health insurance does help you lower your hospital bills not only after the baby is born, but also for the delivery of the baby! Some insurance companies not only offer to bear the cost of the medical risk of the delivery but also provide health insurance for the newborn for as long as 90 days after the birth of the child! Therefore, a health insurance will enable you to at least enjoy the first few moments of parenthood without having to worry about finances. 

2. Reduced Risk for Your Newborn Baby

Let’s face it, there is a lot that can go wrong while giving birth to a new life. Even if it does not, there’s always a risk of the baby being born with some birth defect or disability. These risks significantly increase with the age of the mother. In this case, while the natural birth of a healthy baby itself can be so expensive that it can put many to sweat for money, imagine what mental & economic agony would a complicated birth, financial lack of funds or birth defects could cause for a parent. Some health insurances also cover the expenses of these possible birth defects, and therefore reduce the risk for you! Both pre-natal and post-natal expenses are included in this policy coverage!

3. A stress-free Delivery and Parenthood

This is one benefit of health insurance that you cannot put a price because it is a psychological benefit. A stress-free delivery or parenthood translates into being able to be a better parent. Not having to run after earning additional money, working over-time, or doing multiple jobs can allow you to spend more time with what really matters to you and your family. That is not to miss out the greater, long-term benefits of a stress-free body- A potentially longer life, healthier body and a more creative mind! In this way, thus, a health insurance ends up being much more than a mere security net for when things go wrong. It is a pass to being a more present, a more responsible and a better parent, and who can put a price on that?

How to Choose adequate Health Insurance for Your Newborn?

Just like god didn’t make all the fingers on a hand alike, similarly, not all insurances are made similar. Some are of course, more beneficial than others. But in this plethora of policies in the insurance market where one can easily find hundreds of different options, how can a person differentiate between different insurances and choose the best one for their newborn? Well, knowledge is power, so here are the top four things you must consider before buying a health insurance for your newborn baby. 

1. Always Consider How Comprehensive is the Health Insurance Plan

Heard of the phrase ‘The Devil is in the details’, well that is certainly true for all insurance policies! You must consider what your policy covers; but more importantly what it misses out or excludes. For example, does the policy that you want to shortlist cover the vaccination expenses for the baby? Does it cover for congenital issues that a baby might have? While these may sound like minor expenses, they can add up to a large amount when aggregated and put in context. You wouldn’t buy a bucket that leaks, would you? Similarly, you shouldn’t settle for a policy that has points of ‘leakages’ or in other words, a policy that is not comprehensive, but having a lot of gaps in between. 

2. Check if the Policy offers an Upgrade After 90 Days of Birth

Remember that maternity insurances usually offer health cover for the newborn, but only for a period of three months or ninety days. Now, the ball rolls into your court when you have to decide what you want to do after the period of 90 days is over. You can either choose to have no insurance at all for your baby, but this is not advisable as young children are more prone to accidents. You can also choose to choose another health policy altogether. However, searching for a new policy, especially for a child so young, would be a task in itself. Now, you can also upgrade the policy your child currently has. While choosing a health policy currently, you must keep in mind the options your insurance company is offering you for after the 90 days. If you plan for the future, you won’t have to worry about it in the present. 

3. Ensure the Affordability of Premiums over a sustained period

While all these options in the insurance market will sound extremely attractive, you must also keep in mind that you don’t want to blow all your money just in buying insurance. You must also still keep aside an emergency medical fund for the medical challenges that are not covered by your insurance policy. For example, self-inflicted or riot-infused injuries are not included in almost all insurance policies. Hence, it is important to keep aside a medical emergency fund even if you do already have a very comprehensive health insurance policy. From now on, you must continue to be financially aware and financially responsible, you must create budgets and stick to them. Hence, ensuring that you’re able to pay off the monthly premiums without any difficulty is the key to a stress-free future. 

4. How Much operational Flexibility Does Your Policy Allow You?

There’s only one thing constant in life, and that is change. During this changing passage of time, you must make sure that your policy is as flexible as you are, in tough times as well as easy ones. As your child will grow up, new circumstances will keep coming up. Maybe you’ll plan to have more children at a later date. Maybe you’d be satisfied with the current policy for all the child’s life or maybe you’ll want to shift to another policy either due to some features or due to service quality issue. Maybe you’ll want to keep your child to be a part of the family health policy till he or she is 25, or maybe your child would want to get their own insurance policy after turning 18. You must verify that your policy allows you to change through all these different scenarios and that is exactly what flexibility is all about.

While becoming a parent is a huge responsibility and changing diapers is part of this role that you slip into, there are moments along this journey you must enjoy to the fullest. In fact, you must be able to enjoy these moments without having to worry about money constantly. We hope that you choose the correct health insurance policy for your child so that you would never have to work extra hours, keeping away from the child you love. So that you would never have to worry about arranging money at the last minute in case of a possible accident. So that when your children grow up, they’d teach their own children how good of a financial planner you were and also instill the merits of long-term financial planning in them. All this can start with a very small step of selecting the right insurance policy for your baby.