Is It Necessary to Buy Critical Illness Cover If You Have a Health Insurance Policy In Place?

Whenever there is a medical emergency, you can easily manage the medical expenses if you have health insurance. But what if you or your loved one gets detected with a serious illness? In such a situation, your regular health cover will not offer the required financial assistance. Is it necessary to buy a critical illness cover along with a regular health insurance policy?

Given the rising cost of Medicare, it has become imperative to have insurance in your insurance portfolio. Having a sufficient health cover not only provides you the financial cushion but also helps you get peace of mind. You can handle any medical emergency with ease. No doubt, a health plan is one of the most significant aspects of financial planning, but now the times have changed. People are living a fast-paced life. Work stress, environmental changes, diet choices, etc., is leading to an increase in lifestyle diseases such as heart stroke, cancer, paralysis, diabetes, brain tumour, and many more.

Considering the benefits of a regular health plan, your insurer may not offer cover for serious illnesses or surgeries. Does this mean you should have a dedicated critical illness cover for such disease over and above your health insurance policy?

Let’s get know-how Critical Illness cover will help you if you already have a health insurance policy in place: 

1. Lumpsum Payment: One of the policy’s highlights is a lumpsum payment, which the insurer releases if a person is detected with any life-threatening disease. You can use the amount to pay the hospital bills or avail the treatment or surgery. However, you can claim just once during the policy term.

1. Policy Cover: The critical illness insurance provides cover for nearly 15 illnesses. These include heart attack, stroke, multiple sclerosis, paralysis, end-stage liver disease, Parkinson’s disease, kidney failure, coronary artery bypass surgery, brain tumor, hypertension, organ transplantation, Alzheimer’s, Aorta graft surgery, heart valve replacement.

1. Sum assured: The sum assured offered by the policy can range from Rs.5 lakhs to Rs. 10 Lakhs. The insurance company pays the sum assured as a lump sum at the time of the first diagnosis of any critical illness, subject to the condition that the person survives 30 days from the date of diagnosis.

1. Affordable plan: One of the reasons you should have critical illness insurance is its affordability. You may think that the insurance cover may have a high premium rate, but it is a cost-effective insurance plan. Any individual can buy the policy without undergoing medical tests until the age of 45 years.

1. Family history of critical illness: If your family has a history of Critical Illness, then it is a must to buy the policy. In such a case, you need to avail the cover for all the members of the family. You will need to maintain a balance between health insurance and Critical illness premiums as the probability of critical illness would be high. You can opt for a lower premium amount in case of plain-vanilla health insurance.

If you’re thinking of including critical illness as a top-up benefit under your existing health insurance plan, it won’t provide much cover. It is best to choose a critical illness as a standalone policy. It helps cover the loss of income and incidental expenses that may not be covered under a regular health insurance policy.

Paul Petersen