Top 10 Tips to bring down the Mediclaim Costs
With ongoing COVID-19 destruction, the popularity of health insurance is surging. Moreover, these days, people are putting up a plethora of claims that eventually raise the cost of health insurance premiums. Some prime reasons for health insurance premium increase are your growing age that leads to medical complications, claims history (if you made any claim due to illness), and your health status (if you contact any disease after your last renewal).
Though you can’t control these reasons for mediclaim premium increase, this doesn’t mean your health insurance premium will rise every year. By opting for smart strategies, you can lessen your health insurance premium. One of the popular long-term strategies is that you should purchase health insurance policies at a young age to minimize your premium. At an early stage, there is little possibility of developing any disease or health condition. Moreover, you will get no-claim bonuses and loyalty that will make you eligible for a discount on insurance premium payments.
Besides these, several other discounts and options will also minimize your premium amount. For example, if you combine all these benefits, you may get 40% discounts on your health insurance premiums. But unfortunately, people don’t pay attention to these tiny things.
Top 10 tips to bring down the Mediclaim Costs
- Amalgamate basic health plans with top-up and super top-up options
- Use Co-payments and deductible
- Utilize wellness incentives
- Enjoy family discounts, but don’t include your parents
- Use no-claims and cumulative bonuses
- Multi-year discounts
- Avail of other benefits
- Select plans with sub-limits
- Purchase group plans
- Shift to another cheaper and budget-friendly health plan
Amalgamate basic health plans with top-up and super top-up options
By opting for a booster plan along with your base indemnity plan, you can cut down your premium amount. If you want to buy another basic plan that will give you higher coverage, you need to invest a hefty amount. Thus, instead of purchasing a new plan, you can go for a combination of basic and booster plans. Now, suppose for your basic health policy of Rs. 5 lakh, you are paying Rs 6,621, as a premium amount. If you want to purchase another policy of Rs 5 lakh, then you need to pay Rs 13,242 for premiums. But, if you go for a top-up plan, then your premium will be Rs 9,156. A super top-up will be more expensive, but it is affordable as compared to the combined price of two basic plans. This combination is advantageous if you need to go for a liver transplant treatment or a surgery where you need a higher sum insured.
Use Co-payments and deductible
These days, policyholders are choosing copayments and deductibles (both in-built and voluntary) to cut their premiums. The range of copayment is generally 10-30% of your insurance claim. This means you need to pay 10-30% of your claim amount from your pocket; the insurer will pay the remaining amount. Copayment is basically a certain percentage of your claim, but the deductible is a fixed amount that you need to bear from your pocket before the insurer settles your bill. For example, if you make a claim of Rs. 2 lakh and select for a deductible, you need to pay Rs 5,000 or Rs 10,000 (as a fixed deductible), the insurer will clear the remaining amount.
Utilize wellness incentives
These days, insurance companies are promoting wellness and good health by offering lucrative discounts and rewards to customers. These discounts will bring down your premium significantly. For example, the ReAssure plan of Max Bupa Health Insurance embraces customers with a premium discount of up to 30% based on the average number of steps you take daily. By downloading the app of the insurer, you can collect health points to enhance your discounts.
Enjoy family discounts, but don’t include your parents
Most insurance companies welcome their customers with a discount between 5-15% if they include more than two family members in the same individual policy for a fixed sum insured. By choosing a family floater plan, you can also cut down your premium. For a floater plan, the premium is calculated based on the oldest member’s age. You can ensure your parents by purchasing either individual health policies for them or buying a separate family floater plan.
Use no-claims and cumulative bonuses
No-claim bonus is a common reward feature that insurance companies offer you at the time of renewal for not making any claim in the year. This discount usually ranges from 20-50%. The second popular reward is the cumulative bonus that insurance providers offer by enhancing the sum insured without changing the premium amount.
Multi-year discounts
Suppose you are ready to pay the premium amount of your policy for 2 or 3 years at a time. This will help you to get a discount of 7.5-15%. This multi-year premium is a good option if you are satisfied with your insurer and want to continue with the same plan.
Avail of other benefits
Many insurers are offering a range of discounts that you can wisely pick up and enhance your discounts of premiums. For example, insurers offer various discounts on purchasing health policy online, loyalty discounts, women discounts, zones discounts, and so on.
Select plans with sub-limits
While choosing a health insurance plan, check the sub-limits so that you can understand what amount you need to pay from your end. Moreover, sub-limits can also minimize your premium costs. If you don’t need the entire coverage and your policy comes with sub-limits, you can opt for sub-limits (coverage that you don’t need) to lessen your premium.
Purchase group plans
Another promising way to diminish your premium is to opt for group insurance plans either from your employer or corporate companies. Though these plans are not for the long-term, they are still affordable and cheaper as compared to retail plans.
Shift to another cheaper and budget-friendly health plan
Though this is not recommended, you can still choose it if you want to cut down on your premium. You can shift to another plan if you don’t have any other option and your premiums are burning your pocket.
These are some prominent ways by which you can abridge your premium.
Does health insurance premium increase every year?
These days, insurers are reviewing and revising their policy plans every 3 to 4 years to satisfy their customers. As a result, they are discarding old plans and introducing new ones to get the maximum benefits by paying decent premiums.
To sustain in this competitive world, you need to check your premium amount and try to minimize it as much as possible. But don’t remain solely focused on premium reduction, as you may end up losing some benefits against your policy plan.
