Have You Purchased Health Insurance For Your Parents? Look At These Benefits

A comprehensive health insurance plan will help cover your parents’ medical expenses as they age.

As your parents grow older, they become more prone to illnesses and infections, and hence health insurance becomes a necessity.

Your parents strive hard throughout their lives to provide a comfortable lifestyle and quality education to you. However, in their quest to provide for the family, they may end up ignoring their own needs. As a result, they may be left with minimal savings during the golden years of their lives.

Therefore, as a responsible son/daughter, it becomes your duty to purchase a reliable health insurance policy for your parents. Many insurance companies in India offer dedicated health insurance plans for senior citizens, keeping in mind the unique medical needs of older people.

So, if you haven't yet purchased health insurance for your parents, you should do so without any delay. Let's have a look at some of the benefits of procuring health insurance for parents.

Tackle the increasing healthcare costs

As the medical inflation rate goes up globally, healthcare costs are rising every year in India too. It means that in case your mother or father falls ill in the near future, you may incur greater expenses for their treatment that what you would assume as per today's treatment rates.

However, a health insurance policy for your parents may help you tackle these costs. It typically covers healthcare expenses such as hospital room-rent, doctor's consultation fees, costs for buying medicines and other medical supplies, ambulance charges, etc.

Medical coverage for elderly people

Most standard health insurance policies provide medical coverage for people only up to the age of 65. It means that after this age, your elderly parents may be left without any medical coverage, which can be very risky.

By buying a senior citizen health insurance policy, which offers coverage for senior citizens even after the age of 65, you can ensure optimal health coverage for your elderly parents. Some insurers even provide health insurance for senior citizens with an option of lifetime renewability.

A high sum insured

The healthcare needs of your parents might be very different from yours. They usually require some extra medical care since their bodies are more prone to infections and illnesses. Therefore, a sum insured sufficient for younger people might not be enough for their older counterparts.

A senior citizen health insurance policy generally comes with a high sum insured, keeping in mind the additional healthcare needs of older adults. It allows the policyholders to get coverage of up to ₹25 to 30 lakhs. Some insurers even allow their customers to top-up their sum insured to ensure adequate coverage all the time.

Coverage for critical illnesses

The prevalence of critical illnesses such as cancer, heart attack, kidney failure, etc., increases with age. Coupled with age-associated comorbities, such illnesses can be expensive to treat.

A health insurance policy for senior citizens provides financial coverage to your elderly parents against the treatment of critical illnesses specified in the policy. This is usually provided as an additional cover which you can opt for while buying/renewing the policy. It will help you save lakhs of rupees you may otherwise incur in the absence of a critical illness cover for your parents.

Coverage for pre-existing ailments

As your parents grow old, their bodies become frail and less immune to diseases. Hence, they may suffer from specific pre-existing ailments at the time of buying the policy. A senior citizen health insurance policy provides coverage for pre-existing diseases in older people, albeit with a waiting period.

It means that after the completion of the waiting period, which is usually two to four years from the policy issuance date, your parents will be financially covered for the treatment of pre-existing ailments, such as diabetes, blood pressure, heart diseases, etc.

Free medical consultations and regular health check-ups

Senior citizens need to undergo regular medical screenings and health check-ups. This allows them to detect any illness during its early stage and take necessary measures before things go out of control. Many family health insurance plans comes with a free medical check-up benefit to the insured person throughout the policy period.

Income tax benefits

Another crucial benefit of buying health insurance for your parents is that it offers tax exemptions for the policy buyers. By paying regular premiums towards your parents' health insurance policy, you can avail certain tax deductions under section 80D of The Income Tax Act, 1961.

Under this section, you can claim a maximum deduction of ₹75,000 (up to ₹25,000 for paying health insurance premiums for yourself and your spouse, and up to ₹50,000 for your senior citizen parents).

Before buying any health insurance plan, it's prudent to conduct online research and compare various offerings from different insurers to make an informed decision. If you're planning to buy health insurance for parents, you can look at our health insurance plans. Our Complete Health Insurance policy come with numerous benefits, such as cashless hospitalisation at over 6500+ network hospitals across India, free annual health check-ups, and lifetime renewability benefit.