Why Critical Illness Insurance is a Must?

Illnesses like cancer, stroke, kidney failure, etc., are some of the examples of critical illnesses that have severe financial and health consequences.

Most critical illnesses cannot be predicted and one can only be prepared for them. Illnesses like cancer, stroke, kidney failure, etc., are some of the examples of critical illnesses that have severe financial and health consequences. Also, the growing number of lifestyle diseases due to increased stress levels, worsening pollution levels, etc., means that people are exposed to such diseases much earlier in their lives. Given such a scenario, let us take a look at the most important reasons that one should opt for a Critical Health Insurance plan immediately:

1. Loss of income and prolonged expense

Critical illnesses are unpredictable but their treatment may take years. The medical expenses can be phenomenal, eroding your savings, or forcing you to borrow money. These illnesses also severely impact your working capabilities and may cause loss of income. Under such a condition, it will be impossible to sustain treatment in the absence of insurance cover.

2. Regular health plan may not be enough 

You may have a regular health plan and you may have completed your waiting period to get pre-existing conditions covered but it may not be enough. Firstly, your health plan may not cover the disease you may contract. Secondly, regular health plans pay on medical expenses, but there are numerous other expenses apart from hospitalisation and medicine that comes with such a disease. These expenses could range from anything including costs of travel, supplements, additional care like hiring physios, making modifications at home for the patient’s care, etc. Critical illness plans pay out in lump sum and that can cover these additional expenses for you.

3. Lump sum payout

The critical plans do have some stringent guidelines (certain criteria that you have to fulfil before your claim) but they pay in lump sum. These guidelines may include getting tested by certain labs, getting illness confirmation from certain hospitals, specific tests, surviving for 30 days after the diagnosis of the disease, etc. 

The lump sum payment entails that if you have a sum insured of Rs. 10 Lakh and you fulfil their payout criteria, they will pay you Rs. 10 Lakh irrespective of your hospital expenses. This helps in dealing with other expenses related to the illness. 

You can also have more than one critical illness policy and according to the guidelines, you can claim benefits on both of them simultaneously and the insurer would have to pay you the lump sum amount as promised. 

4. Cheaper, Long Tenure, and Larger Cover

Critical Illness plans have lower premiums when compared to regular health plans. They also provide longer policy tenures and most of them allow lifetime renewal. And since critical illnesses mean larger expenses, the sum insured under these policies (for the same amount of premium) is much larger than the sum insured in regular health plans.

5. Small waiting period

Critical illness plans need you to survive for 30 days since the diagnosis of the disease to pay you. And Critical illnesses diagnosed within 90 days from the inception are not covered. Apart from these two restrictions, there are no long-waiting periods to be covered to claim benefits.

6. Number of illnesses covered

Most critical illness plans cover anywhere between 20-30 illnesses including diseases like kidney failure, bypass of a coronary artery, paralysis, traumatic head injury, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, among others. They exclude HIV/AIDS infection, any illness due to smoking, tobacco, alcohol or drug intake, Hernia, Cataract, etc. depending on your policy.

7. It’s flexible

You can purchase critical illness plans like a comprehensive plan that would include your basic health plan or you can purchase a critical illness plan on top of your regular plan (add-on). You can decide either one to opt for based on the total cost of premium and the cover they provide you, both in terms of sum insured and diseases covered.

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash.

OneAssure is a distribution platform that helps you make right decisions on matters where health and finances converge. Visit oneassure.in to know more about your health insurance choices.

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