Distinctions Between Comprehensive Health Insurance and Standard Health Insurance Plans

Getting a health insurance plan is a popular choice in today’s world. This policy financially protects you against any foreseen medical expenses. Health insurance has several benefits like paperless policy, maternity coverage, health insurance tax benefits, etc. Moreover, nowadays you can also opt for health insurance online for easy policy comparison, purchase, renewal, discounted premiums and other benefits.

In this article, we will explore different types of health insurance plans i.e. comprehensive health insurance and standard or regular health insurance.

What is Comprehensive Health Insurance:

Comprehensive health insurance offers extensive protection like cover for hospitalisation, cancer, heart attack, ambulance charges, etc. This policy also covers outpatient consultations and treatments. A comprehensive health insurance safeguards the policyholder’s savings in case of any future medical expenses. This ensures that the policyholder remains stress-free when it comes to medical expenses.

Benefits of Comprehensive Health Insurance :

Wider Treatment Range

Comprehensive health insurance covers a vast range of treatments including hospitalisation costs, outpatient treatments, and also minor injuries. This ensures that the policyholder is financially protected against all foreseeing accidents and diseases and can get any treatment required under this health insurance plan.

 Provides Different Ways to Raise a Claim

A comprehensive health insurance offers two ways to raise a claim in your health insurance plan. The first one is a cashless mediclaim policy where the bills are settled by the insurance company directly and you do not have to pay for any bill out of your pocket. On the other hand reimbursement claims pay for the bills and later get reimbursed by the insurance company.

Add-on Covers

By paying slightly extra you can opt for add-on covers and extend the coverage of a comprehensive health insurance plan. These  add-on covers include maternity cover, critical disease cover, room rent waiver etc.

Lifetime Renewability

The benefits of a comprehensive health insurance plan include lifetime renewability. Meaning,  no age limitations when it comes to policy renewal. As long as a policyholder pays the premium amount on time and renews the policy before it expires, they continue their health policy as long as they want.

Pre-existing Disease Coverage

Pre-existing diseases such as diabetes,  asthma etc are included  in the coverage of a  comprehensive health insurance plan. However pre-existing disease coverage only starts after a fixed waiting period.

Tax Benefits

Under section 80D of the Income Tax Act, you get certain tax benefits under a comprehensive health insurance plan. Comprehensive health insurance allows policyholders to reduce tax payments. This reduction amount grows higher in the case of older people.

Cumulative Bonus:

A comprehensive health insurance policy offers a premium discount in the form of a cumulative bonus every year that the policyholder has raised no claim.

What is Standard Health Insurance

Standard health insurance offers basic and limited coverage. This policy covers the medical expenses before and after being hospitalised and also the medical costs of being hospitalised if it is for more than 24 hrs. The coverage provided by this health insurance policy is set as per the guidelines of the IRDA. This policy does not allow add-on covers like cancer cover or other critical illness covers.

Benefits of Standard Health Insurance:

Coverage:

This policy covers ambulance bills, tests, daycare treatments, and hospital bills if the policyholder is admitted for more than 24 hours.

Premium Payment:

With a standard health insurance policy you get the option to pay the insurance premium in full annually as well as quarterly, half yearly or monthly instalments.

Free Look Period:

Standard Health Insurance policy offers a period of around 15 days to properly look at and assess the details of the health insurance plan. And since the details of health insurance are quite complicated it is better to have this time and make correct decisions.

Key Differences between Standard Health Insurance and Comprehensive Health Insurance:

Standard health insurance offers basic coverage, such as protection against minor injuries, tests, and consultations. If you have been hospitalised for more than 24 hours, this policy covers the costs of that.

On the other hand, comprehensive health insurance provides a wider range of coverage and provides financial protection against critical illness cover, pre-existing diseases, routine checkups, COVID-19, ambulance costs etc.

Standard health insurance offers coverage between One Lakh Rupees and Five Lakhs. On the other hand, with comprehensive health insurance, the sum assured can be between three lakhs and two crores.

Wrapping Up

The cost of healthcare treatments is rising, but with the help of healthcare insurance, individuals can easily afford the best possible treatments. It has also become quite easy to buy online medical policy. Make sure you choose your healthcare insurance plan wisely.