How to Manage Multiple Health cover?

You manage all your credit cards, numerous bank accounts and a diverse investment portfolio with ease. How about handling different health plans in a crisis? Claim filing, a complicated process in the best of times, can become trickier if you have more than one policy.

With rising healthcare costs, the variety of policies available and awareness, it's common to find people having more than one health policy. While increasing your cover is not a bad idea, it is important to prepare to ensure that your claims are approved without hassles.

For this, you need to know the claim procedure, which depends on the type of policies you hold.

Finding difficulty in getting health insurance? We at Moneymindz.com will make it easy for you. Just give us a missed call on 022-62116588 to explore our Free financial Advisory Service.we are not a seller of any financial products. We only provide FREE financial advice so that you are not mis-guided while buying any kind of financial products. 

While many have employer's group mediclaim and personal policies, there are other policies and combinations as well.

Is it Necessary? 

Here are cases where multiple policy combinations are useful

COMMON COMBINATIONS

General insurance companies usually sell health indemnity policies under which they reimburse the hospital bill on the basis of cover (sum insured) and policy sub-limits. However, one needs to be in hospital for at least 24 hours for filing a claim under these plans. These are typically one-year contracts and have to be renewed every year.

Then there are critical illness plans and personal accident policies, which have fixed-benefits. Here, the policyholder gets a predetermined sum at the vesting date. Some life insurers also sell fixed-benefit health plans, unit-linked health plans and hospital cash-benefit policies. These contracts can be of longer duration.

Since these plans are different, the claim procedures differ according to the combination you have.

We look at typical situations a policyholder with multiple covers may encounter at the time of making a claim and suggest ways to ensure smooth settlement.

Group and Individual Indemnity policy:

Claim can be lodged with any of the two insurers. However, experts say one must first exhaust the group claim limit.

"The group health policy should be the first choice as the claim will not result in an increase in premium. If you file a claim for the personal policy, the insurer is likely to apply a loading charge which will impact your renewal premium," says S K Sethi, chief executive officer, Ria Insurance Brokers.

Also, group policies are slightly more liberal and cover even pre-existing diseases. In an individual policy, one has to usually wait for three-four years for coverage of pre-existing illnesses.

Having a health plan would not affect underwriting for the second health policy and it would be treated as a fresh proposal. However, it helps if the existing policy has a good claim experience.

Transparency is the key before signing multiple policies: 

Many people are unaware of the intricacies involved with the transparency while having more than one health covers. Most insurance companies have a clause seeking details of any existing health covers. Many of us do not disclose our existing health covers even though it is mandatory under the rules as well as a moral obligation. One of the most misunderstood perceptions for most people is that disclosing any existing health covers may hamper any possible medical claims in the future. But the fact is that claims are not always affected by multiple health covers.

Employer?s Group Insurance Policy + Individual Policy: 

Group insurance policies are usually more relaxed when it comes to covering pre existing illness while individual retail policies provide insurance on such diseases only after a lock in period of 3 to 4 years depending on the policy terms and conditions. So a group policy helps here in this case. Also if your group policy?s limit is exhausted and at the same time an emergency has come to you or anyone in your family, your individual health cover will be a solace for you.

In case of pre existing illness or any doubtful claims you can request the payout with the group insurance provider. The other one can be kept as a reserv

Personal reimbursement plus fixed-benefit plan: 

Typically, fixed-benefit plans such as health plans sold by life insurers and critical illness and disability covers pay on diagnosis. The policy lapses after the claim is settled. The process is usually different from that of regular indemnity plans, which settle claims on the basis of actual hospital expenses. Hence, one can make concurrent claims with fixed benefit and reimbursement plans.

"However, in some policies (like hospital cash benefit plans) where the insurer needs the complete set of documents, the customer will have to take permission from the insurer to submit photocopies," says Sarnobat.

FOR A SMOOTH CRUISE

Honesty is best for the health of your policy. No matter which combination of policies you have, declare all your policies while buying a new one. This ensures an accurate premium rate and a hassle-free claim experience.