Seeing a rapid increase in medical inflation with health insurance premium, you should consider purchasing riders, which are introduced in your policy as ‘add-on option’. Health insurance riders can provide you decent coverage at low cost.
A health insurance rider, which is additional benefits or coverage that gives you an additional amount for your policy, provides enhanced coverage to your family. Leading health insurers now offer ‘day 1 paid (pre-existing disease) rider’ that provide you coverage for any pre-existing diseases from the beginning of the policy. There is a primer on health insurance riders, its types, advantages and disadvantages.
What are the types of health insurance riders?
There are many riders that you can buy with your health insurance policy. When you are buying insurance for the first time, you have to choose the option of riders. Here are some important health insurance riders and they are important benefits that they provide.
Serious illness
A policy with a serious illness rider provides a person with a one -time lump sum payment if one of the serious diseases specified is diagnosed. The insurers cover a host of serious diseases related to major organs in the body. This rider usually comes with a waiting period of 90 days from the date of issuing the policy and usually occurs once in nature. It exists after paying for the treatment of serious illness.
Day 1 paid coverage rider
This health plan rider is one of the most important ‘add-on’ that you should buy with your regular policy. This forgives any waiting period for PEDS from the day of starting the policy. This rider forgives any waiting period for peds such as asthma, hypertension, hyperlipidmia and diabetes.
Maternity rider
This rider should be one when the insured person is married and planning to start a family. A maternity rider covers the expenses related to pregnancy and delivery. The rider includes delivery, pre -postpartum care and newborn care related expenses. Depending on the policies of the health insurer, the waiting period for this rider can vary from nine months to six years.
Unlimited automatic restoration of insurance
This is probably the most important ride that you should add to your policy. If your Aadhaar policy ends due to increasing claims of one or several numbers in a policy, the rider restores the insured unlimited number.
Many insurers offer this rider without a waiting period. But the question of this question is whether the insured will be restored for medical treatment related to the same disease or depends on the terms and conditions of specific policy for various diseases.
Room rent discount rider
Room rent discount rider enables policyholders to choose a room with high fare. If you choose the option of this rider, the insurance provider will forgive the sub-limit on the rent of the hospital room. There is no need to choose this rider until the limit of your room fares in the policy is not very low. Unlike the riders listed above, which are all about medical conditions and their treatment costs, room fares are non-medical in nature and can be taken care of under the current policy.
OPD rider
An outpatient department (OPD) Health Plan Rider works well when you often go to see a doctor for diseases that do not need to be hospitalized. The ‘OPD rider’ involves a medical procedure or expenses for examination in OPD. This includes the doctor’s consultation fee, the cost of the drug and the cost of clinical trials.
Global cover rider
This rider allows you to receive reimbursement for planned treatment abroad. Since medical treatment is expensive abroad, this rider provides better treatment options while financially protecting you at the same time. But you can only get reimbursement when you are referred to and recommended by your doctor in India for treatment abroad.
Other rider
There are many other riders such as ‘Hospital Cash Rider’ that provides cash during treatment time in a hospital and ‘paid waiting period rider’ which reduces the waiting period for already existing diseases. If they match your specific needs, you can choose them.
How about the cost of health insurance riders?
The additional amount paid by you for riders is related to your base premium. If you buy an additional policy then they are usually very few that you have to spend to enjoy some benefits. India’s Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDAI) does not allow the insurers to charge more than 30% of the Aadhaar premium for the riders. So, if you have a premium 15000, cannot exceed the rider 4500.
What are the benefits of riders?
Health insurance riders provide many benefits. Here are the major benefits
High and customized coverage
With a health insurance rider, you can get better coverage by adding specific benefits to your base health insurance policy. This enables you to customize coverage at your desired levels. In fact, you can convert a basic health insurance policy into a broad that can be adapted to your needs.
No need to buy additional policy
In health insurance, ‘Any size actually fits all’. But with health insurance riders you can get most benefits that you want in a policy. There is no need to buy only additional policies to enjoy some benefits.
What are the disadvantages?
The main disadvantage is that you have to buy many riders to suit your needs. Each additional rider increases your cost. If you buy 3-4 riders, you will only pay more than the base insurance premium for the riders. It is always better to get a comprehensive health insurance policy. If you are not able to get comprehensive insurance or if the premium charged for such coverage is quite high, you can buy the rider.
Allerjan M is a journalist with two decades of experience. He has worked with several major media organizations in the country and has been writing on mutual funds for almost 16 years.
