What Should you Know About New-Age Group Policies

The popularity of group health policies has gained momentum because these plans offer unfathomable customization options that you won’t get with retail health insurance plans for individuals. Thus, group health policies are ideal where you need to cover a standard group of people, including employees, employers, formal associates, and so on.

These days, India is witnessing a new wave of health issues that have motivated health insurance companies to introduce a set of new products that will cater to the diverse requirements of customers. These new-age policies will give you peace of mind amid medical inflation and pandemics like the COVID-19. Always choose the top 5 health insurance policy plans that offer new features for every individual in the group.

Here are some new-age benefits that health insurers are offering to individuals in a group. Of course, most private companies are looking for these benefits for the well-being of their employees. As a result, many insurance companies revamped their policies and offered these new-fangled features, while some offer these features with additional costs.

Some New-Age Features of Health Insurance Policies

• Psychiatric treatments: Earlier, health insurance companies usually offered coverage for physical health issues. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDA) instructed health insurers to incorporate mental disorders into all their regular health insurance policy plans. For mental illnesses, these policies offer coverage for in-patient hospitalization expenditures.
• Chemotherapy for cancer patients: Cancer treatment is extremely expensive and will drain out your savings utterly. A cancer-specific policy is one of the critical illness policies. This type of policy reimburses the costs related to diagnosis, hospitalization, chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.
• Ayurveda treatment coverage: These days, many patients are trusting Ayurveda for their ailments or diseases. Thus, modern health insurers are embracing their policyholders with alternative treatment coverage without any second thought. If you are looking for alternative medications, choose those policies that offer coverage for Ayurveda and non-allopathic medicines. These days, many health insurance providers are limited to allopathic medicine; they extend their coverage and support alternative medicine treatment costs.
• LGBTQ and live-in partner cover:  Many group health insurance policies offer coverage for LGBTQ partners and live-in partner coverage without any additional cost. Now, all individuals can include their partners under group health policies.
• Lasik cover for even +/- 5 corrections: Lasik or laser eye surgery is a permanent refractive eye surgery that helps you quit eyeglasses or contact lenses. Earlier, insurance companies used to consider this a cosmetic surgery, but modern insurance companies are reimbursing the costs of eye surgery and treatment. This coverage is advantageous to people because a plethora of the population suffers from vision issues in India.
• Stem cell, robotic surgery, and cyberknife: Many insurance companies are not willing to offer coverage for new treatment procedures. These new treatment methods won’t fall under the category of common medical practice. Before making any commitment, ensure that your policy must include this coverage. Because of the ever-increasing demand for new-age diseases, IRDAI is now lessening the number of exclusions for advanced treatment procedures.
• Air ambulance cover: Always purchase a health insurance policy that offers coverage for medical exigencies even at inaccessible locations. An air ambulance is a special service where an airplane or helicopter is used to transport patients to a hospital of a different location. New-age health insurance policies are not only arranging the air ambulance but also reimbursing the costs.
• Internal and external congenital diseases: Earlier, people suffering from genetic disorders like cleft lip, heart defects, cerebral epilepsy, etc. won’t receive any coverage for their treatments. IRDAI recently introduced new guidelines that allow health insurers to cover both internal and external genetic disorders.
• IVF: In vitro fertilization (IVF) is an infertility treatment method that helps couples to overcome their difficulties in conceiving a child. Earlier, insurance companies didn’t offer any coverage for IVF treatment. But, these days, many new-age policies are offering IVF coverage (with long waiting periods) along with maternity coverage.  
• Surrogacy: Many new-age policies now embrace customers with surrogacy coverage and maternity coverage in their health insurance policies. But the insurance company will bear only the expenses of the surrogate mother.
• Dental treatments: Earlier, health insurance companies used to consider dental treatments as cosmetic treatments. Thus, they didn’t offer coverage for this kind of treatment. But, new-age policies are covering dental treatments under outpatient procedures (OPD) with certain restrictions.
• Organ donor expenses: Some critical illnesses often demand the removal and replacement of damaged organs with healthy organs. Unfortunately, organ transplant surgeries are very expensive and will certainly make a hole in your pocket. But some health insurance policies are offering the expenses incurred by the organ donor with some conditions.

Every insurance company has a list of exclusions for their policy plans that a customer should be aware of before investing a single penny. So, read all terms and conditions carefully and check whether your selected policy offers the costs of the treatment that you are looking for or not. Then, prefer a group health insurance plan that provides a hassle-free claim settlement process.

If you are still pondering which is the best health insurance policy in India, then compare various plans online and choose the most suitable one. A new-age policy comes with a spectrum of facilities, including doctor telephonic consultations, dental checkups, mental wellness sessions, fitness memberships, and other health benefits that resonate with the group’s requirements and needs.