What is Family Health Insurance
The family health insurance policy is a kind of health insurance plan that provides coverage for the entire family under a single insurance plan against a fixed sum insured. This type of health insurance policy can be tailored and customized according to the convenience of the family. Apart from covering the insured person, the policy can cover his/her spouse, dependent children, parents, among others. In a nutshell, it gives you overall comprehensive health coverage against different diseases and thus offers financial protection to you and your family.
Under a family health insurance policy, the policyholder can insure his/her entire family under single health insurance and for that, the single sum insured is required whereas the standard or individual health insurance plan provides coverage for only one person. This denotes that if you are a family of 5 members, then you have to buy separate 5 insurances for each and bear the expenses. That is hazardous and might put a burden on your pocket. But under family health insurance, you don’t need to carry this burden as all the 5 members can be covered under a single family health insurance plan.
You might be thinking that the premiums paid for family insurance are higher than the individual health insurance. But unfortunately, you are wrong. The premium paid for family health insurance is lesser than the premium paid for individual health insurance. Let us understand this with the help of an example.
But one thing you need to remember is that though a family floater is cheaper and more convenient under this policy the insured people have to share the sum insured. That means if the husband and wife are covered under Rs. 10 lakhs sum insured, it is true that anybody can use the amount but if a situation arises where both of them need medical aid of Rs. 10 lakhs at the same time, only one of them is eligible to use the amount. But this type of situation comes up rarely, so still, the family health insurance plan is more suitable than the individual health policy.
Key Benefits of Family Health Insurance Policy
A family health insurance policy not only covers the insured person but also provides coverage for the entire family, even for the grandparents, parents, and dependent children. It comes with several other benefits. Let us have a look at the key advantages of this plan below.
- Comprehensive Protection to The Entire Family – Under one family health insurance plan, you can cover your entire family and you need not buy separate insurance policies for the family members. It is not only hassle-free but also convenient and pocket-friendly
- Affordability – The premiums that you have to pay for the family floater health insurance that is way cheaper than the premiums paid for the individual health plans. For better understanding, suppose, you are a family of 4 members, by buying one single-family health insurance plan, you can cover all the four members while buying an individual health plan for each member, and paying 4 premiums separately would be costlier and hazardous.
- Additional Benefits – Different insurance companies come up with varied add-ons to extend the benefits of the policy to make protection for you and your family stronger. Such extensions are critical illness cover, maternity cover, newborn and child’s marriage cover, and so on.
- Tax Benefits – Under this policy one can avail of the tax benefits under Section 80D of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
- Protection Against Covid-19 – Almost all the insurance companies are now offering coverage for the coronavirus under the family health insurance plans.
- Availability of Discounts – Under this type of health insurance policy you can also grab some discounts and a perk in the form of incentives as offered by the insurer. This is the easiest and simplest way to secure your family’s health.