Retirement years are fraught with many challenges. One of them is to meet the cost related to health care. Limited incomes, and increased life expectancy coupled with inflated medical costs, may seem to be a concern for many. To ease the such issue, it is vital to incorporate health insurance in your retirement plan. This would ensure unexpected medical expenses are met, without draining out the retirement corpus that has been saved.
Health Insurance- Start Early
A sound retirement plan should not only build a retirement corpus but must also make provisions to take care of medical expenses in later years. With age, our proximity to illnesses and diseases increases. Thus, health insurance is an important component of retirement planning.
Financial experts have always stressed on the importance of planning for retirement early in one’s earning years. The sooner you enter a policy, the lesser its cost. This is because health insurance premiums are directly proportional to the age of the insured. Post the age of 60 years, premiums go up every 5 years by at least 20%.
Evaluating Before Making a Choice
- Before choosing a health insurance plan, a realistic evaluation of your needs is required to ensure you choose the one that is most suitable for you.
- Your medical needs – Pre-existing illness, heredity ailments, etc…that need to be covered
- Family: Who are the dependents you desire to cover post-retirement, and their age and existing health conditions?
- Family history of critical illness if any that may be high risk.
- Regular checkups and doctor visits. With age, regular routine checkups may be required. Does the plan take care of that?
- Your preferences and lifestyle- The type of hospital and rooms you prefer.
On the evaluation of this factor, look into the options offered by health insurance providers. For a family cover, you could opt for a floater plan. If you have a history of critical illness in the family, it would be wise to opt for a Critical Illness plan, which covers the maximum no. of ailments.
Reviewing Your Plan
Just as important as it is to evaluate your needs before choosing a policy, periodic reviews are a necessity too. Health Insurance policies should be periodically reviewed to ensure there is adequate and wide coverage of medical ailments. It is always ideal to opt for a comprehensive policy with lifelong renewability.
Health Insurance for the Senior Citizen
Health Insurance providers have medical insurance policies exclusively to cater to senior citizens. With Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) mandate keeping 65 years as the maximum entry age for a health insurance policy, a few insurance companies have come up with insurance policies with a late entry age. Such plans however may be limited in their benefits or the sum assured may be inadequate.
Some of the health insurance policies for senior citizens are Silver Health from Bajaj Allianz, Varistha Mediclaim offered by National Insurance, Optima Restore from Apollo Munich, Complete from ICICI Lombard, and Gold from Max Bupa. So for those who have not incorporated a health plan early, these policies could provide the much-needed financial support to meet medical expenses in their retirement years.
What Can a Health Insurance Policy Offer?
Here is a quick look at the most common benefit offered by health insurance plans that would be required in the golden years…
- Hospitalization and Domiciliary hospitalization expenses
- Treatment of critical illnesses such as room charges, doctor fees, nursing fees, cost of medicine and drugs, etc.
- Daycare expenses arising from procedures such as chemotherapy, dialysis, etc
- Medical expenses before and after hospitalization
- Ambulance charges
- Pre-existing diseases (subject to terms and conditions of the insurer)
