Health Insurance- Dont take company policy for granted

Just recently, a friend of mine went through terrible times trying to get cashless insurance done for his hospitalization. He had a company health insurance policy. He finally had to shell out a lakh from his pocket and then go through the reimbursement route.

Hopefully , in the next 3-4 months he will be able to get the money reimbursed from the health insurance company.

While Health insurance is a good coverage that one gets from their company , it should not be taken as a granted facility. Usually, companies have a push that they can do with the insurance company to try and get the money approved faster ( because of the large volume of premiums that they pay), however there are always some cons with every Pro's.

Here are some cons.

• The insurance coverage is always applicable till the time you are working with the company, Anytime you leave the company and till the time you join the next company, there is a period where you and your family are not covered by insurance-- this is very risky!
• Companies are moving to a co-pay facility to help reduce insurance costs. Co pay means that the employee would need to pay a certain percentage of the overall costs ( say 20%) in case of hospitalization.This helps reduce the abnormal charges the hospital may charge the insurance companies as the patient is "covered by insurance". However this increases the liabilities onto you.
• As you retire , getting a health insurance becomes more costly and becomes more difficult to get. A lot of your pre existing diseases may not be covered. It is best to have an insurance plan right from the beginning.
• If there is an issue of reimbursement, one cannot go to the ombudsperson since the insurer is the company. The company may not want to get its name raked into a case. In this case the employee is the loser.

While this is definately a benefit that the employee gets- it is not something that we should be relying on totally.

A separate insurance policy makes sense. A floater policy covering your entire family.

Get going.. get yourself insured.

Happy investing

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( photos taken from freedigitalphotos.net)