7 Foolproof Ways To Save On Health Insurance Premium
Everyone is interested in purchasing the best health insurance plan with maximum coverage, but it does not fit into their budgets easily. So, you must look around for some very practical tips which can help you in saving some money on your health insurance premium.
7 Ways to Save on Your Health Insurance Premium
Purchase Your Health Insurance Policy at a Young Age
Various factors determine the premium of your health insurance policy. However, age is the most important one among them. With the increase in age, the health insurance premium also increases. Even if the sum insured and the features are the same for a health insurance policy, the premiums would be different for two people having different ages. So, you can easily save a good amount on your health insurance premium by purchasing your insurance at an early age.
The table given below can help you to illustrate the method.
Age Group | Insurance provider | Tenure of policy | Sum Insured | Premium paid |
18 years-34 years | HDFC ERGO Health Insurance | 1 year | INR 5 lakh | INR 7,119 |
36 years-44 years | HDFC ERGO Health Insurance | 1 year | INR 5 lakh | INR 7,881 |
So, this example helps us in illustrating the difference in premiums of policies that have the same tenure and sum insured but policyholders of different age groups.
Now, health insurance premiums increase with age, even if you had bought it at a younger age. However, since you would have purchased the health insurance plan at a younger age, your policy would surely not have a premium loading or restrictions, thus saving your annualised premium.
Choose Family Floater Plans
Another method to save on health insurance premiums is by opting for a family floater health insurance plan. The family floater health insurance plan is much more economical than that of the individual health insurance plan. By this method, you can easily secure together with your family under the umbrella of single health insurance and at a nominal price too. If you have four members in your family i.e. without any senior citizens then the family floater health insurance would be the best option.
Family Floater and Senior Citizen
However, you should not include senior citizens into family floater health insurance plans. Rather, you should purchase separate senior citizen health insurance policies for them. Usually, in a family floater health insurance plan, the major determinant of the premium is the age of the senior-most member of the family. Also because the claims for senior citizens are usually higher, the chance of getting a no claim bonus would be lower in your policy if your parents are included in the same plan!
Choose for a Deductible Amount
If you are the person insured, then the amount of deductible would be determined by you. Until the amount of the deductible, you would not have to make any payment. By choosing the deductible amount of your health insurance policy, you would be able to pay a lower your health insurance policy premium.
Insurance Provider | Tenure | Sum Insured | Deductible Amount | Premium |
Bajaj Allianz | 1 year | INR 7 lakh | No Deductible | INR 7200 |
Insurance Provider | Tenure | Sum Insured | Deductible Amount | Premium |
Bajaj Allianz | 1 year | INR 7 lakh | INR 1 lakh | INR 5800 |
So, you are purchasing the same health insurance plan with the same sum insured and the same tenure but with different deductibles. When there is no deductible chosen, the premium paid is higher than that of the plan with a deductible option.
Why Opt for a Deductible?
If you have any other health plan or a group insurance plan, you can opt for a deductible for a similar amount. Say, you have a health plan of INR 2 lakhs, then you can opt for a deductible of INR 2 lakhs.
Get the benefits of No Claim Bonus
Several health insurance companies provide rewards to their policyholders for not making any claims during the policy year. This reward would come in the form of the No Claim Bonus at the renewal of the policy. You must choose that health insurance plan which comes with the feature of NCB. The percentage of NCB can start at 5% and extend up to 50% of a rise in sum insured.
Moreover, there are some health insurance companies as well which provide the benefit of Super NCB which can be within the range of 60% to 150% for each policy year without any claims. So, if you are planning to continue with a health insurance company for a longer duration in a No Claim manner then you would be able to avail the reward of increase in coverage due to NCB, which is effectively a lower premium per lakh of coverage!
Top-up and Super Top-up Plans
A good method by which you can obtain a health insurance policy with high coverage and at a nominal premium is by opting for a top-up plan or a super top-up health insurance plan.
By a top-up or a super top-up health insurance plan, you can get an additional sum assured which can be used by you once the sum assured of your base health insurance policy is exhausted. It has been observed that purchasing a base health insurance plan along with a top-up plan would be much cheaper than buying a general health insurance policy with high cover.
Opt for a Two-year Policy
There are a large number of health insurance companies that offer health insurance plans for two years. By offering the tenure for two years, you would be paying the less cumulative premium and thus, would help save a considerable amount of money by this method. By opting for a longer tenure of the medical insurance plan, you would remain protected from the impacts of inflation and this would be helpful in further saving.
Age Group | Insurance provider | Tenure of policy | Sum Insured | Premium paid |
18 years-35 years | Apollo Munich | 1 year | INR 3 lakh | INR 5,800 |
36 years-45 years | Apollo Munich | 2 years | INR 3 lakh | INR 9,500 |
So, if you would have opted for a policy with a tenure of 2 years in the first place, the premium would have been around INR 10,000 as there has been a discount on the offer.
Avail of the Benefit of Co-payments
You must try to take the complete advantage of the co-pay feature. By the co-pay feature, you would be selecting to pay a particular percentage of your claim amount at the time of claim settlement. This would help in the reduction of your policy premium.
During the process of claim settlement, you would have to make the payment of your part first and then the health insurance provider would take care of the rest part. This is known as a co-payment facility.
Conclusion
So, you must keep in mind these foolproof ways by which you can save on your premium while you are purchasing your right health insurance policy. You must compare insurance plans online and purchase the best ones.