A family floater health insurance plan can be considered as a health insurance option that covers the entire family. All the members of the family can be covered under the umbrella of a single health insurance plan. The sum insured is said to float in between the members of the family as it can be used for the health-related expenses of all the family members.
A family floater health insurance plan can be said as an economic option for ensuring the financial coverage of your entire family during medical emergencies. One of the primary benefits of Family Floater Health Insurance Plans is that you will not have to dodge different health insurance plans for your family members.
For example, you have purchased a Family Floater Health Insurance Plan which covers yourself, your spouse, and your two kids. The sum insured of the Family Floater Health Insurance Plan is INR 3, 00,000. Now, this INR 3, 00,000 can be utilised by any of the family members.
Suppose, your spouse was hospitalised due to some medical emergency and an amount of around INR 1.5 lakh was used. This entire amount was claimed by the Family Floater Health Insurance Plan. Now, there is an amount of INR 1.5 lakh remaining which can be used by the other family members in case of any illness.
Why Should You Have a Family Floater Health Insurance Plan?
The major cause due to which a Family Floater Health Insurance Plan should be purchased is the inflation in the costs related to medical facilities and services. Modern ways of living, lack of work-life balance, unhealthy environmental conditions, and various new age illnesses are the sole reason behind the rise in costs of medical services. If you are willing to preserve your hard-earned money from the clenches of health care expenses, a floater cover is the best way possible.
Purchasing insurance in bulk would be advantageous. The premium that you would pay for a Family Floater Health Insurance Plan would be less than the premium of the individual insurance plans which you would purchase for each member of your family.
Differences Between Individual Health Insurance Plan and Family Floater Health Insurance Plan
Let us check out the major differences between an individual health insurance plan and a Family Floater Health Insurance Plan.
- Coverage Provided – If you have purchased an individual health insurance plan, then you can avail the coverage for only one person. But, the Family Floater Health Insurance Plan would provide cover for all the members of the family i.e. your spouse, your children, and your parents or parents-in-law. Some of the Family Floater Health Insurance Plans can also provide the benefit of coverage for your brothers, your sisters, and other family members. Moreover, the Family Floater Health Insurance Plan can also help provide cover for your newborn child who is less than 90 days.
- Sum Insured – As said earlier, the entire sum insured can be used by all the members who have been covered under the Family Floater Health Insurance Plan. However, an individual health insurance plan would provide cover for the insured person only.
- Premiums – The premiums for both the health insurance plans are determined by the ages of the policyholders. In a Family Floater Health Insurance Plan, the age of the eldest family member in the plan would determine the premium of the policy. This would make the Family Floater Health Insurance Plan cheaper than an individual health insurance plan.
Key Aspects to Consider While Purchasing a Family Floater Health Insurance Plan
If you are planning for the purchase of a Family Floater Health Insurance Plan, then you must remember to keep the following key aspects of a Family Floater Health Insurance Plan in your mind.
Who Should be Covered?
Since, the coverage would be on a shared basis, who should be covered under the policy is the most important point to remember. To make your Family Floater Health Insurance Plan function in the best way, you have to be very careful about the selection of the members.
You must consider the health risk which is associated with each member covered in the plan. For instance, if there is an aged member or a member who has a previous medical history of diabetes, heart ailments, etc. then he can act as a risk factor. There might be frequent claims for this member thus, using up the coverage amount of others as well. Moreover, insurance providers might consider this member as a risk factor and thus, increase the premium of the policy. So, it is wiser to purchase individual health insurance policies for such members of the family. You can also opt for the co-payment of expenses during the time of health insurance claim settlement.
So, while making the decision about who should be covered under your Family Floater Health Insurance Plan, you must consider
- The health conditions of the family members
- The living style, the age and the habits of the family members
- Adding up children into a Family Floater Health Insurance Plan is the best idea as children are least susceptible to illnesses.
Sum Insured
Depending upon the members of your family whom you are thinking to put into the Family Floater Health Insurance Plan, you should determine the Sum insured. You must determine an amount which should be adequate to cover the health care requirements of the family members. You must choose a higher sum insured for a family which is bigger. Moreover, you must keep in mind that your sum insured should not be chosen based on the current cost of medical services; rather should be chosen based on future costs.
Coverage Benefits
You must compare policies and make a list of the coverage offered by the different Family Floater Health Insurance Plans such as day-care charges, ambulance cover, hospitalisation charges, etc. Moreover, you must also keep in mind any injuries that can occur due to your environment at the workplace or any pre-existing conditions. Furthermore, if you are going to start your family soon, you should ensure that your newborn baby can be added to the policy conveniently.
Additional Features
If there are multiple benefits associated with your family floater policy then it is beneficial, but you must be aware of the terms and conditions associated with those benefits. No claim bonus is an additional benefit that would help in increasing your sum insured. Another benefit available with the Family Floater Health Insurance Plan is the Restore benefit which would restore the sum insured once the complete amount is exhausted.
Renewability and Network Hospitals
You should compare the maximum age up to which the policies can be renewed. This would help in selecting the Family Floater Health Insurance Plan which would offer coverage up to a long time as the maximum need for an insurance policy would be during your old age only.
Also, you must know about the network hospitals where you can avail of cashless hospitalisation as a part of your Family Floater Health Insurance Plan. This would be helpful for you in cases of both planned and emergency hospitalisation.
Conclusion
So, Family Floater Health Insurance Plans are highly economical than the individual health insurance plans. You can be a bit more aware and then you would be able to obtain the maximum benefits out of these Family Floater Health Insurance Plans.
