Need info on mediclaim / medical insurance

raksrules

raksrules

Northstar
We had mediclaim / medical insurance previously from TATA AIG and feel that their premium was high. Now my dad is considering taking insurance of some other company for our family now. The two companies that he is considering for now are Star insurance and Reliance life.
Since my dad is a senior citizen the offers he has got for now are...

1. Star - 5000 Rupees per year for his insurance (individual) and this is for insurance of Rs. 1 Lakh and the insurance will be available till 85 years of his age.

2. Reliance life - This is more enticing and this offer is only for senior citizens. Rs. 50k per year for 5 years and after 5 years they will return back Rs. 4 Lakh 11 thousand. I know this offer might sound too good to be true and I had asked my dad to confirm everything. Also after 5 years we don't have to pay anything but insurance will still be active.

Any one has any idea about these two companies in terms of medical insurance?
 
raksrules said:
We had mediclaim / medical insurance previously from TATA AIG and feel that their premium was high. Now my dad is considering taking insurance of some other company for our family now. The two companies that he is considering for now are Star insurance and Reliance life.
Since my dad is a senior citizen the offers he has got for now are...

1. Star - 5000 Rupees per year for his insurance (individual) and this is for insurance of Rs. 1 Lakh and the insurance will be available till 85 years of his age.

2. Reliance life - This is more enticing and this offer is only for senior citizens. Rs. 50k per year for 5 years and after 5 years they will return back Rs. 4 Lakh 11 thousand. I know this offer might sound too good to be true and I had asked my dad to confirm everything. Also after 5 years we don't have to pay anything but insurance will still be active.

Any one has any idea about these two companies in terms of medical insurance?
Click to expand...

Tata AIG is not bad to begin with. Go through all terms and conditions. Mainly the process of claims of these companies. And what is covered and what is not, coverage of pre-existing conditions if any etc. If your old policy covered certain conditions, you can get those covered under new one without any additional premium.

Most importantly 1L cover at his age is insufficient. If he is still working and earning, you need cover of minimum 5L, ideally 10L. There are lots of plans which offer joint cover for couples or family. Check them out . It might also be cheaper to look at entire family's cover and take the cover in your name which covers your parents. This can be cheaper in the end as you are young and healthy. A joint family cover of 10L might be the way to go.
There might be someone more suitable here to answer your queries regarding companies. But this is what we have. Joint family cover that converts entire family.
 
0.Since how long you are with Tata AIG? Were there any claims on the policy?

1. Depending on the period & claims you may be able to get the no-claim bonus from the new insurer by transferring.

2. Family floaters (that is what the total family covers are called) would become very expensive as they normally charge based on the age of the oldest member. For ex. in a family of 4, say the Dad - 40, Mom 35, Kid1 - 12, Kid2 7; then the cost would be based on the Dad's age of 40. The table that would be applicable would be the one with 40 years. Otherwise people would buy policies for the 7 year kid as lead in the family!

3. One option would be to split your Dad from the family (only on paper, for getting better cover!). Buy a family cover for the rest.

4. Get a Senior Citizen cover for your Dad separately. Read the fine print very very closely, esp. reg the pre existing illnesses. If you can transfer the Tata (all you need is a letter from them reg. no claims, don't worry they give, they are bound to give as per IRDA!) you will get the benefits of the zero claims.

5. Depending on what you wish to spend, get a X lakhs policy for him with a "top-up" X lakhs. This would effectively cover 2X lakhs but the cost would be significantly cheaper. You can even buy the first policy from one co and the Top-Up from the other.

6. Star has excellent reputation on health insurance reg the servicing of claims.

7. Money back on health insurance, well well well...... hard it for the first time. But do remember that you are buying insurance. It is not an investment to get "returns".

Happy shopping!
 
Mee to doing the homework to buy a policy for my mom and dad. One thing i am sure and as suggested above is not to go for family floater, for the reasons explained above.
Consider separate policy for mom and dad each, and you can opt for a family floater with your wife (if you're married). This approach is sensible both financially and logically.

I am also finding my way to narrow down to a "right/reliable" company. Keep me posted if u find something and so will I. Thanks for opening the thread. Hope more members experienced with this can pitch in.
 
@Shripad Family floater policies usually calculate the premium based on the age of the eldest person in the group, which would turn out to be a disadvantage in this case. As mentioned above, ideally, his parents can be covered by a separate health insurance policy, and the rest of the family with another. THat would work out cheaper.
@raksrules The Reliance plan looks to me like a life insurance plan. Reliance advertises just a couple of health insurance policies on its website, and none of them mention about any cash back. http://www.reliancegeneral.co.in/insurance/health-insurance/health-insurance
 
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In my experience most of the companies offer similar plans in terms of cost (variation of 5 - 7% ) as they have to be competitive in the market. So I don't think you would find much variation as far as pricing goes and corresponding facilities provided. If at all there is a significant difference in pricing, the terms would also differ significantly (such as waiting period for covering pre-existing illnesses, daily cash allowance etc. etc.). And in my experience, individual policies work out to be better value for your money rather than floater covers. Given the age of your father the major factors to look into are:

1. Ease in claims processed and payout history.
2. Pre-exisitng illness cover.

You should ideally choose your company based on the above two metrics even if it means paying a little higher as come claim time, the money saved on a cheaper policy would not amount to much if the claim is not processed smoothly. You can consider Apollo Munich and Max. Max also provides complimentary yearly health tests which would be a nice facility given your father's age. Also as Shripad said, 1L cover is too low for health insurance given current healthcare costs (atleast in metros). Consider hiking the cover. Banks such as Citibank also provides health insurance policies for its customers the rates of which are much lower (almost 40% in case of my parents) than the market as they are designed as group policies. They are no frills policies but get the job done at the end of the day. Maybe you can find out from your bank if they provide a similar service. Hope this helps.
 
I would also like to know more about mediclaim policies... My Dad is 60yr and Mom is 50yr old... Was looking out for LIC... What would be the ideal cover at such age considering it doesn't cost a bomb?
 
Star and Baja Allianz do their own admin, no TPAs.
@unni: LIC does not have a pure health insurance product. They provide critical illness (Jeevan Aarogya) cover.
 
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Check out Apollo Munich as well. They dont have sub limits like a lot of the companies, offer life long renewal, and I think you can migrate over to them with no waiting period for pre-existing illnesses if you already have been covered by another insurance company.
Customer service is very good. I have not had to claim anything so far but have a couple of friends for whom the process for relatively smooth.
 
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