Do you need a private health insurance cover even if your employer provides you with family medical insurance?
My employer provides medical insurance for my family. Why should I opt for a private health insurance cover? Also, we are all quite healthy. We hardly ever use the insurance cover provided by my employer.
A corporate health insurance policy is one of the most popular perks that companies offer their employees. Quite often, these policies also offer the option to cover the employee’s parents at a nominal premium. Compared to private health insurance covers, corporate policies also have minimal waiting periods for pre-existing illnesses. All these factors make corporate covers an invaluable perk to most employees.
However, even if you have a medical insurance cover from your employer, it is prudent to have in place a private health insurance cover. Here’s why:
- Corporate covers cannot be retained after retirement. Even if they can be retained, the associated premiums are hefty. In the absence of a private health insurance cover, you are left uninsured at an age where your medical expenses are likely to increase.
- The cover amount provided by corporate policies is often low. Since corporate covers are issued without detailed risk profiling, the insurance amount offered is lower than comfortable.
- Private health covers offer more options to choose from. You have the flexibility to pick policies that fit your needs best.The best time to purchase a health insurance cover is when you are in the pink of health. If you defer purchasing a health cover and gets diagnosed with any medical condition that is likely to have a lasting impact (hypertension is a classic example), you are likely to face a barrage of exclusions and elevated premium costs when you try to purchase a health cover.
By Aparna Mundani
Senior Wealth Manager
PeakAlpha Investments