Critical illness insurance plans can be bliss for those suffering from a life-threatening disease. The waiting period of a health insurance policy means the time until which you won’t be able to raise a claim. The critical illness waiting period is 90 days. For pre-existing diseases, you will have to wait for 24 months. Your policy will get rejected if you raise a critical illness policy during the waiting period.
Types of Waiting Periods in Health Insurance
The waiting period means the time an insured has to wait before receiving some or all of their coverage benefits. During this time, the policyholder cannot raise any claims for their illness. There are three types of waiting periods.
- Initial Waiting Period: It is often called the cooling period. This kind of waiting period in health insurance restricts the insured from raising any claims for planned hospitalization or emergencies. This waiting period is usually 30 days.
- Waiting Period for Specific Diseases: Some diseases like hernia, cataracts, and arthritis are listed under specific diseases in your health insurance document. These require special long-term medical care, so, their waiting period is different from the initial waiting period. Usually, it is 1 to 2 years.
- Pre-Existing Diseases Waiting Period: This is the waiting period for declared pre-existing conditions. Diseases like thyroid, hypertension, diabetes, or any conditional ailment or injury diagnosed by your physician 48 months before buying your first insurance policy are termed pre-existing illnesses. Claims for these diseases can be made only after the waiting period and this may vary as per the insurer. So before buying the policy, you should check carefully.
Does Critical Illness Have a Waiting Period?
Most insurers create a critical illness waiting period clause of 90 days to prevent the policyholder from cheating the system. Many people purchase critical illness insurance when they are diagnosed with serious health issues and seek treatment after purchasing the plan. This is against the insurance's main purpose, which is to protect the interests of the insured against the unexpected. This ensures that the insurance policy doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions right away, encouraging policyholders to get the coverage while healthy. The waiting period ensures that the insured doesn’t use health insurance benefits for regular medical expenses.
Conclusion
Before buying the critical illness plan you should go through all the important terms and conditions mentioned in the policy document. Ensure that you check out the critical illness waiting period, exclusions, etc. Thus, you will be able to make the right decision and avoid all kinds of unexpected issues that may arise in the future.
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