5 Important Riders You Must Add to Your Health Insurance Policy

Buying  health insurance plans for you and your family is one of the wisest choices to make for securing the health of your loved ones in future. However, as times change, so do our healthcare requirements. And that is when a basic health insurance plan may start appearing ‘inadequate’ to cover all your health needs and subsequent extra costs. Does that mean your basic health insurance plan needs to be now replaced by an entirely new cover to accommodate all the extra costs?

What is a Rider in Health Insurance?

A rider is essentially an add-on feature that can be included in your already existing basic health insurance plan at a very affordable cost. Sometimes the health insurance plans that we purchase may not be able to cover additional costs incurred on health care.

For instance, some policies fail to cover maternity costs or death by accident costs in their scope of benefits. Instead of then buying a completely new health insurance policy to accommodate those costs, it’s easier and economical to simply add a rider to your existing plan.

This would now make your policy comprehensive and extend the coverage area. Besides, by adding riders, you can custom-design your health insurance to suit your individual healthcare needs. What’s more, these riders can be added at a very nominal price too.

Top 5 Riders that are a Must-Add to Your Health Insurance Policy

1. Critical Illness Rider in Term Plan or Health Insurance

Let’s first understand what is critical illness rider in health insurance. As the name suggests, this additional feature allows the insured to avail cost benefits from the insurer in case of a critical illness or disease that generally requires prolonged treatment. Some examples include heart conditions such as heart attack, multiple sclerosis, tumor, cancer, or organ transplant.

The benefit of buying this rider with your health insurance plan is that you become entitled to receiving a lump sum amount or an assured sum from the insurer in case you’re unfortunately diagnosed with a critical illness. Moreover, one major benefit of critical illness rider in health insurance is that the sum assured is irrespective of the actual total cost involved in the treatment of the said illness. You can easily purchase a critical illness rider in conjunction with your term insurance or health insurance policy.

2. Maternity Cover Rider

A number of health insurance plans in India fail to cover maternity costs for the policyholder. However, it cannot be denied that the total expenditure incurred during delivery can be quite a burden on the pocket. This is where buying a maternity cover rider with your health insurance plan comes in handy. It would help cover the costs involved in childbirth. Some insurance plans provide restricted coverage for pregnancy and post-delivery costs, so you may want to check with your insurer before purchasing the rider.

3. Hospital Cash Rider

This rider can be particularly helpful in case of emergency hospitalization. Daily expenses incurred during hospital stay can be quite a sum and so this rider can help cover all those costs by providing everyday cash allowances and other benefits to the policyholder for healthcare expenditure incurred during hospital stay. Also, in case intensive care was required for the patient (such as in the case of ICU), cash benefits would be offered only if the patient was hospitalized for more than 24 hours.

4.Personal Accident Rider

Accidents can involve huge expenditures too. In case of an unfortunate death by accident of the policyholder, his/her family is eligible to receive twice the amount as stated under the rider in the health insurance policy. In case of any temporary or permanent disability caused due to the accident, all expenses incurred can be covered by purchasing this rider.

5. Room Rent Waiver Rider 

This is another helpful add-on that allows you to get a room of your choice during hospital stay without worrying about any room rent cap from your insurer. This rider helps do away with room rent capping so that you can have a comfortable stay during hospitalization. It is of great use to patients living in metropolitan cities where hospital room rents can be quite high.     

The importance of riders in insurance cannot be undervalued. They allow common man to earn access to high-quality treatments and make healthcare services affordable to all.

Riders You Must Add to Your Health Insurance Policy

Riders are optional, additional terms that take effect along with your basic policy and are frequently charged separately. Simply put, a rider offers more protection and coverage against risks.

With your term insurance plan, you can choose from a variety of riders depending on your needs. These include the income benefit rider, the waiver of premium rider, the critical illness benefit rider, the accidental disability benefit rider, and the accelerated death benefit rider.

The majority of the time, riders are connected to permanent life insurance plans. The most popular riders are long-term care, return of premium, family income benefit, guaranteed insurability, accidental death, and waiver of premium.

The name of the insured is more crucial than any other element of the insurance policy because if the name of the insured's legal entity is incorrect, the policy might not be able to cover a claim.

Over to You

Care Health Supreme and HDFC ERGO Optima Restore are among the best health insurance policies in India today. It is a matter of your priority, coverage depth over cost effectiveness. Here’s a quick recap for you to make an informed decision.

Both offer coverage of up to ₹1 crore; Optima Restore starts at ₹3L, Care Supreme at ₹7L. Supreme offers unlimited recharge; Optima Restore offers 100% once a year, after a claim is made. Care includes OPD + unlimited e-consults; Optima lacks OPD, allows one consultation/year. Care gives a 30% discount + 500% bonus; Optima offers 8% discount + 50% bonus. Care Supreme is costlier but has more features. Optima suits budget buyers; Care fits those needing wider, long-term coverage.

Whichever health insurance plan you choose, ensure to read the policy wordings and seek advice from an expert before you make the purchase. The best health insurance is the one that covers you the way you want to be covered.
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Author Bio

Paybima Team

Paybima is an Indian insurance aggregator on a mission to make insurance simple for people. Paybima is the Digital arm of the already established and trusted Mahindra Insurance Brokers Ltd., a reputed name in the insurance broking industry with 17 years of experience. Paybima promises you the easy-to-access online platform to buy insurance policies, and also extend their unrelented assistance with all your policy related queries and services.

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