Should You Include Your Parents in Your Family Floater Health Insurance Plan?

As your parents age, will the increased frequency of insurance claims for their treatment affect your family plan? Will it decrease your sum insured and lead to other financial expenses later on?

Here is a detailed guide to help you understand if you should include your parents in family floater health insurance.

How Does Including Parents In Your Family Floater Health Insurance Affect It

Rise In Premium Price

Adding your parents to a family floater plan can result in an increase in policy premiums. When you buy medical insurance from any company, they calculate the premium based on the age of the eldest member under the policy. So, when your parents are included in the policy, the premium price will be higher due to their old age.

Moreover, the insurance providers also consider any pre-existing illnesses while offering a policy. If your parents suffer from any pre-existing condition, then their coverage will also add to the premium.

Insufficient Coverage Amount

The family floater health insurance provides a single pool of coverage amount for all the insured members under the policy. When you include your parents in the family floater plan, this coverage amount might become insufficient.

This is because they are elderly and have higher health risks, with more instances of utilising the sum insured. It will leave the other insured members with insufficient or lower coverage amounts. This might result in a shortage in coverage if you or any other family member needs to have immediate medical treatment(s) with high financial support.

Impacts No Claim Bonus

Adding parents to your family floater health insurance can also impact the no-claim bonus benefit. You become eligible for a no-claim bonus benefit for not making any insurance claims during a policy year. Accumulating a non-claim bonus for five consecutive years can get you a significant discount on policy premiums.

However, elderly parents may require frequent medical attention. Adding them to the family floater plan may mean several insurance claims in a year. Doing so impacts your no-claim bonus benefits and reduces your chances of getting premium discounts.

What Should You Do Instead?

Now you know why you should not add your elderly parents to your family floater plan. But the question is, what should be done then? The answer is to buy medical insurance separately for your elderly parents. These are senior citizen health insurance policies, which include features and benefits designed specifically to fulfil the medical needs of senior citizens.

Here are some of the benefits of buying an individual health insurance policy for your parents.

●        Inpatient Treatment: A senior citizen plan allows your parents to get coverage benefits for diseases or illnesses that require hospitalisation as an inpatient.

●        Preventive Check-up: Under the senior citizen plan, your parents also get financial coverage for an annual preventive checkup. This feature helps in the early detection and treatment of critical illnesses.

●        High-End Diagnosis: The plan also covers the expenses of high-end diagnostics listed in the policy wordings on an OPD basis.

●        Consumable Cover: When you buy medical insurance for senior citizens, it also comes with a consumables cover. This cover takes care of the expenses on specified consumables listed in the policy that were used during hospitalisation due to medical or surgical treatment of illness, injury or disease.

●        Cumulative Bonus: Senior citizens can also benefit from a cumulative bonus for every claim-free year. It means getting a certain premium discount on renewal for the past claim-free year.

●        Tax Benefits: Buying a health insurance policy for your elderly parents also gets you income tax benefits. You can avail of deductions as per Section 80d of the Income Tax Act.

Health Protection With TATA AIG Medical Insurance

Getting medical protection for your parents is a responsible decision. However, opting for a separate senior citizen plan for them, rather than including them in a family floater health insurance, is a wiser decision. With their customised health insurance, they get better health coverage and specialised health services as per their requirements.

You can opt for the TATA AIG senior citizen health insurance plan. Their elder care plans include several benefits, such as pre- and post-hospitalisation cover, road ambulance cover, day care procedures, AYUSH benefit and second medical opinion cover.

The best part is that your elderly parents do not even have to visit TATA AIG’s branch office; you can visit the TATA AIG health insurance website and complete the insurance buying procedure for them with a few simple clicks.