With the increasing stress of COVID, financial stress is also something there. People are looking for COVID Insurance just to ensure the financial counterpart of the disease. Globally and nationally, there’s been a surge in cases of COVID-19 positive patients. It’s no surprise that people are worried whether their health insurance are COVID proof or not, Therefore, looking for COVID Insurance policy in India
Others have immediately spent money on health covers. Most health products cover inpatient COVID-19 treatment. These are mainly COVID Insurance in India look for-
When choosing health insurance coverage and their subsequent products, one must keep the four C’s in mind. These are co-pay and room rent limits, consumable cover, benefits covered, and finally, coverage.
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Let’s look at them in more detail.
Co-pay and room rent limits-
Customers are required to bear a part of the expense from their own pocket in most health insurance products. This is called a co-pay. It’s a simple measure built-in by insurers that is meant for cost control.
It’s a reasonable ordeal when the bill is small. However, the burden to pay out of your own pocket increases when bills are large. If the claim is 50,000 INR and the policy has a 10% co-pay, then you are expected to pay 5,000 INR yourself.
On the other hand, the insurer would have to pay the remaining amount of 45,000 INR. Imagine, however, that the bill is 10 lakh INR. You’ll have to pay 1 lakh INR.
In cases of COVID insurance, room rent is a large part of the cost of treatment. This is especially true in cases where the insured patient is in a private hospital. Many of the specialized isolation facilities in tertiary care hospitals are charged higher.
You should ask questions regarding sub-limits for room rent that the policies may have.
Consumable cover-
Consumables are items that are meant for one-time uses. These are largely used only one time in order to prevent infection as they’re not sterile.
Examples of consumables in a hospital setting would be gloves, masks, cotton, and more. Health insurance products, most of them at least, do not cover such kinds of consumables,
COVID-19 is an infectious disease that forces healthcare workers to wear personal protective equipment. This is done so that the infection doesn’t spread to healthy people.
In doing so, the requirement of consumables has increased and so has the hospital bills. It’ll definitely be favorable to you if you check whether your policy covers such consumables,
Only a few products do cover these, so check and choose wisely.
Benefits covered-
Most of the people who test positive for COVID-19 do not have any major or significant symptoms that call for inpatient treatment. However, some of them may require a diagnostic test or basic medication.
These are covered in products offering health insurance that covers OPD expenses, or outpatient basis. Do check if the policy has this cover in order to ensure that such expenses will be taken care of.
If the patient needs admission to a hospital, such expenses will definitely be covered under most products for COVID insurance. However, there are few insurers who have exclusion for pandemic diseases.
Make sure to read the fine print so that your policy does not have such exclusions built-in.
Coverage-
According to insurers for COVID-19, there are around 200 claims and most patients are still admitted. Thus, it is still too early to analyze the costs of treatment for COVID-19.
A quick analysis of claims from six cities and other assessments show that the average claim is expected to be more than 5 lakh INR. The assessments included treatment costs based on the reported complications, the length of stay, and other such factors.
Additionally, there is a likelihood that if one person contracts the virus, the other members might contract it as well due to the highly infectious nature. Thus, it is important to have coverage of more than 10 lakh INR to ensure adequate coverage.