You must take your family size into consideration, to get a health insurance plan that suits best.
Hectic professional schedules, lifestyle, pollution and accidents are few of the several grim factors that can affect your family's health. The continually rising medical inflation and skyrocketing healthcare prices have made health insurance a must-have for everyone.
Family health insurance plans protect you from high medical expenses you may incur due to unforeseen hospitalisation of any of your covered family members. Such plans typically take care of hospital bills during medical emergencies or planned medical procedures.
However, before buying a health insurance plan for your family, you must know the impact of a family's size on the cost of the medical insurance policy. Although a larger family size may escalate the health insurance cost, it does not necessarily mean you will spend more to secure your loved ones.
How to secure your family's health
Below are the ways through which you can get your family's health secured:
Buy individual health insurance plans for different family members
The first option is to buy separate individual health plans for different family members. Below are the features of such plans:
- The medical coverage is steady and well-defined. It will not be affected by the claims made by other family members.
- Coverage is based on the age, health and habits of each member of the family.
- You can avail medical coverage for anyone in your family with individual policies.
However, having a separate health insurance plan for each family member can break your bank. Here, your family size directly impacts the premium amount as the number of policies you need to buy increase.
Buy a family floater plan
The other and more prudent option is to buy a family floater plan for your entire family. Below are the features of a family floater plan:
- The medical coverage of other members can change in a particular policy term if one member claims expenses.
- Children above a certain age cannot be included in family floater plans.
- The premium is based on all the members covered in the plan.
- New members can be added to a floater plan with at the time of renewal.
Impact of family size on the cost of health insurance
Larger family size does not necessarily mean higher medical expenses. A family of six people may incur lesser medical costs than a family of two, depending on the individual's current health condition. It means a healthy family of six people may utilise its health insurance only once during a year, whereas, a family of two people with existing health issues may need to use their health insurance multiple times.
However, the size of a family does indeed impact its health insurance premium. The cost of a family health insurance policy goes up every time a new member is added.
For a better understanding of how family health insurance works, let's study an example.
Mr X wants to take a health insurance policy that gives coverage to himself, his spouse and two minor children. He gets an insurance coverage of ₹50 lakhs for the four family members combined. The insurance premium is based on Mr X's age since he is the oldest member of his family. It also factors in the other three members he is adding to the plan.
Suppose, during a policy term, Mr X's wife requires a gall bladder stone removal. She utilises the family medical insurance policy, and the insurance company pays the bill of ₹3 lakhs for it. For the rest of that particular policy term, all Mr X's family members will be eligible for medical claims of up to Rs. 47 lakhs.
During the same policy term, say Mr X experiences a cardiac event and has to undergo an operation. The insurance company pays the hospital bill of Rs. 7 lakhs for it. So, for the rest of that particular policy term, Mr X's entire family remains eligible for medical claims up to ₹40 lakh.
In this way, the remaining sum insured continues for the family on floater basis.