Does Health Insurance Cover Accidental Injuries in India?

Are Accidental Injuries Covered under a Health Insurance Policy?

Accidents are unforeseen and can take place anytime anywhere. Are you prepared for such unforeseen events? Do you know if your health insurance policy offers coverage for accidental injuries? Read on to know.

Life is very unpredictable. Moreover, while on the road you cannot predict any unforeseen event that might take place anytime. Accidents are some such unforeseen events that no one knows about in advance. And when it takes place, it disturbs your life physically and monetarily by causing a huge hole in your pocket and your savings.  Thus, people have started insuring themselves against accidental injuries to protect them from the unfortunate crisis situation that might crop up anytime in life.

Does health insurance cover accidental injuries? Do you know if you are protected against accidents? Let us find out in this blog below.

So, do you get health coverage against Accidental Injuries in India?

Protection against accidental injury is a part of all health insurances in the country. However, they are not offered as a part of the regular health insurance plans but the insured needs to buy them as personal accidental cover separately. Under this coverage, which include ambulance charges and in-patient hospitalization, anyone sustaining injuries in an accident can avail compensation against the same.  Post-hospitalization costs, physiotherapy, daily cash allowance during hospital stay etc., might also be included under some health plans to cover the cost caused by accidental injury.

On the whole, a health insurance plan allows coverage against emergency hospitalization in case of accidents. Here, you don’t have to complete the waiting period and you can get coverage from the first day of the policy.

Let us now discuss the personal accident insurance

What is Personal Accident Insurance?

If you talk about accidental injury definition, it can be stated as a policy that covers an insured against costs that arise out of any accidents on the road. So, as part of this policy your insurer will reimburse costs that you incur in the treatment of injuries caused by road accidents that can lead to any kind of disability or even death of the insured.  This is a standalone policy, which is also available as an add-on cover with regular health insurance. However, whether you buy as standalone or as a rider, you have to make payment of the cover separately as a separate premium for the coverage.

5 Reasons to buy a Personal Accident Insurance Policy in India?

Here are a few reasons why you must buy a personal accident insurance policy:

1. To get coverage against accidental death or disability – A minor injury in an accident is bearable, but all accidents do not cause just minor injuries. There are accidents on the road that can be fatal and that causes permanent disability or can lead to death. And if the disability or death is caused to the insured, who is the financial support of the family or the breadwinner it causes great difficulty to the other members of the family.  In such a case, having a cover of personal accident insurance helps the insured person’s family by paying them compensation as a lump sum amount so that they can recuperate from the disability or the death of the insured. This way, the family can meet their regular expenses along with covering for costs like education of children, marriage, etc.
2. To offer financial Security to the family – With a personal accident insurance plan, the insured can secure his/her family monetarily. Financial help can let the family pay off any debts, kids’ education, and other such important financial burdens that are liable on them.
3. To get coverage against hospitalization costs – Though a personal accident insurance plan does not pay off for hospitalization costs in case of accidents, this cover can be bought as an add-on by the policyholder. So, the insured can pay extra premium to avail extra coverage to get compensation against hospitalization.
4. Global Coverage – In case of a health insurance policy, you get coverage for treatment of an illness within the country at a hospital in India. But in case of a personal accident insurance plan the insurer pays for the compensation caused due to an injury in an accident irrespective of the location where met with the accident. So, here you get global coverage for accidental injury.
5. Coverage against terrorism – Terrorism is something that most health plans do not offer coverage for. But you can get a cover against terrorism under a personal accident insurance policy. Under such coverage, medical costs emerging out of accidental injuries because of terrorist vandalism can be compensated by the insured

Again, in this case also, you might have to buy the terrorism cover as an add-on protection under personal accident insurance policy. So, it is better to check with the insurer about the coverage details before buying the policy.

Read More: What Is a Personal Accident Insurance Scheme?

To Conclude

Now that you know the accidental injury insurance definition from the above discussion, personal accident insurance is important to secure the family of the insured in case the policyholder meets with an accident. In most cases, health insurance plans allow emergency accidental hospitalization cover but it is better to buy accidental insurance separately to get benefit of death and disability. All you must do is to compare plans from multiple insurance companies and purchase the one that is best in terms of coverage against accidents. This way, you can expect to get an accidental injury insurance worth it.