Child started working and wants health insurance? This one's the best

Our children are the light of our lives, and when we buy anything significant, we want them to benefit from it. This is especially true in terms of including them in one’s health insurance policy.

Children can be covered under the family health plan, but…

Most people that buy a family floater health insurance plan include their spouse, children and even aged parents in the policy. However, there is a strict rider on including children: they must be financially dependent on you, and their age must not exceed 25 years (depending on the insurance provider’s terms and conditions). Thus, if your child is below age 25 years and has secured employment, they can no longer be included in the family health insurance policy. They must get a separate health policy of their own once they cease to be financially dependent on the parents, or attain the age of 25 years.

How to buy a health plan for your child

Buying the health insurance plan for your child requires the same process as buying a health plan for yourself. Your child might have a set of requirements of their own – do understand them before you start to help them in buying the policy.

• Look for top rated individual plans. The best health insurance policies are available for both individual and family, such as the

Arogya Sanjeevani Policy. You and your child can browse for suitable individual plans together, and note their unique offerings. Always select plans that are highly recommended by trusted advisors, or a close friend or colleague who has a similar plan and is happy with it.

• Help them get the right coverage amount. Often, one gets bogged down by plan features and premium amounts. However, one of the most important considerations is the plan coverage. Though your child is choosing an individual plan and is relatively healthy, it helps to have adequate coverage in case they ever require hospitalisation and treatment. As a rule of thumb, the coverage should be about 8 times the child’s annual income.
• Buy it online. Insurance providers are happy to sell their health insurance plans online to young, healthy and employed individuals. The premiums for younger health insurance buyers are lower; the premiums rise with a rise in age, so it is best to buy the plan when one is younger and in good health.
• Look for a high claims settlement ratio. Just as it is important to buy a top rated plan, it is important to buy it from a reputed insurance provider. Look for one that has a high claims settlement ratio – this is immensely helpful for settling claims without dispute and delay.
• Compare like plans before buying the best one. Your child can call for quotes from three or four like insurance providers to compare benefits, premiums, coverage amounts, exclusions and inclusions, network hospitals, etc. After studying each, you can help them pick the most suitable one.

Which one’s the best? Try the Arogya Sanjeevani Policy

It is a standard health insurance policy (i.e. every health insurance provider offers the same policy irrespective of whom you buy it from). It is available as both family floater and individual plan, and the premium on the policy is quite affordable. The coverage amount when it was first floated in India was Rs 5 lakh; it has since been enhanced to Rs 10 lakh.

Its biggest benefits are that it offers COVID-19 hospitalisation benefits, no health check-up up to age 45 to buy the plan, a 30-day waiting period and cumulative bonus on no claim years.