Family Floater Health Insurance Plans – A Quick Overview

What is Family Floater Health Insurance?

In simple language, floater policy means that all family members can come under the coverage of one umbrella. Here each insured member can avail of the benefits offered under the health policy by being a part of the larger common pool. For instance, if you are a married individual with kids, a family floater plan is the best option to cover all your dear ones under a common sum insured as compared to buying separate plans for different members.

Best Family Floater Plans

Several top health insurance companies offer some of the best floater plans. However, when buying a floater health policy for your family, compare quotes online from different policy providers before making the purchase. With the help of online comparison, you can make a judicious decision of buying the most suitable policy as per your needs and policy features.

Below are 5 best family floater plans that you can choose from:

How does family floater Health Insurance work?

Let’s take an example to understand the functioning of a family floater mediclaim policy. For instance, suppose you opt for a family floater plan with a sum insured of INR 4 lakhs at a premium price of INR 6,000. The plan offers coverage to yourself, your spouse, and your two children.

Now there can be two possible situations where the sum insured can get exhausted. Suppose, in one situation your spouse gets admitted to a hospital for the treatment of an illness. The complete cost of the treatment came to INR 3 lakhs. You raised a claim with your insurer, and the amount got reimbursed.

In another situation, suppose you, your spouse, and your kids got sick due to food poisoning and had to be admitted to the hospital for treatment. Here, the total hospital cost came to INR 4.8 lakhs. You raised a claim with your insurance company and got reimbursed for the full amount of the sum insured, which is INR 4 lakhs. So, you have to pay the rest of the amount, i.e., INR 80,000, from your pocket.

However, it is a rare phenomenon that all members of a single family would fall sick. So, there is very little likelihood that the entire sum insured will get exhausted within the policy term.

Benefits of Family Floater Health Insurance Policies   

The key benefit offered by a family floater policy is that it covers all the family members within a single policy. Hence, the head of the family can take care of his/her self as well as his/her family members under a single sum insured, paying a single premium. This makes it easy for the insured to manage the healthcare responsibilities of 4-6 individuals together.

Further, many floater health plans also let you include your parents or senior citizens under the policy, making it all the more cost-effective.

Other benefits include:

• Floater health policies are a lucrative and cost-effective option
• They allow income tax exemptions u/s 80D
• The floater plans allow the option to add immediate family members such as a spouse, in-laws, new-born babies, etc., under the plan
• Further, since it is less likely for the young members of the family to get sick that often, the senior members raising a claim can avail greater sum insured at a reasonable premium

Some Demerits of Family Floater Health Plans

• If one member of the family uses a greater share of the sum insured in the first claim during a policy year, the rest of the members have to be content with whatever coverage remains
• Most floater plans offer coverage to the insured, his/her spouse, and children only and exclude their parents and siblings, which is a huge turn-down
• Another drawback of the family floater plan is that it can be renewed till the eldest member covered reaches the maximum age of renewability

Things to Remember while Opting for Family Floater Plans

Here are some important things to look out for while opting for a family floater plan:

1. Maximum age of renewability offered:

Till recently, the upper age limit of entry into a family floater plan was within 65-75 years. However, as per IRDA intervention, the limit has been lifted to lifelong renewability. However, all insurance companies may or may not apply this feature under their plans. So, checking with the insurer about the same while buying the policy is important.

2. Sub-limits applied:

Do not get trapped by policies offering a considerable sum insured under your family floater plan. First, check if the plan applies any sub-limits for sub-categories before choosing the policy. For instance, if you buy a floater health plan of INR 4 lakh as the sum insured and the policy levies a sub-limit of INR 50,000 on pre-and post-hospitalization, and INR 30,000 on medicines, etc., you would not get many benefits from the plan.

3. Policy tenure:

These days, several health insurance companies offer health policies for a term of 2 years rather than the usual 1-year policy term. So, try to buy a policy with a greater policy term for more benefits.

4. Benefit of Reinstatement:

Normally, health policies come with a fixed sum insured for a fixed term period. However, many insurers provide the facility of sum insured reinstatement. Here, if the sum insured under your policy gets exhausted within the policy tenure, you can use the feature to refill the plan with the added sum insured.

5. Value Added Features:

These are the extra features and add-ons like free health check-ups, free medical advice on the phone, discounts, NCBs, etc., that you may look for under different floater health plans.