Family Health Insurance or Individual Health Plans – What to Choose? 16^th September 2020

Establishing life goals entail insurance plans, but that’s not a holistic confirmation to your investments. The next question would be - whether to settle for an individual or a family floater plan.

Insurers provide these variant coverages for their health insurance services. But what are the key differences? What should you choose? What are the benefits? All of which will be answered in the following paragraphs.

Know the difference

The literal meaning automates a difference which understandably leads you to think of the package claims.

• Individual health insurance is issued against a single person. So, if you were to propose insurance coverage for your entire family, you’d have to buy insurance respectively for each member. That’d provide an allotted sum dedicated to each individual under the insurance policy.
• But if you are looking into family insurance, all the members will be covered under one single insurance package. Unlike the former variant, family insurance has an allotment dedicated to the entire family, which is to be shared. So, if your family has two other members with an insured sum of 4 lacs INR, the cluster would be sharing the same amount. Thus, a health insurance policy for the family will only dispatch the stipulated amount irrespective of the individual requiring healthcare assistance.

How does it work?

A family insurance plan relies on the hypothesis or rather, the possibility of all members requiring medical assistance at the same time. So, if a family of three buys an individual plan of 3 lakhs for each member, a family floater plan of 8 lakhs can equally justify the needs.

How are the premiums determined?

The premium for family health insurance is determined based on the age of the oldest member. However, for individual plans, the only determining factor is the age of the member insured. The family plans tilt towards your affordability, especially for younger families. But if the oldest member suffers from a terminal or any immediate ailments, individual plans are recommended.

Comparative Analysis of Family vs Individual Health Insurance

• Individual health insurance is issued against a single person. So, if you were to propose insurance coverage for your entire family, you’d have to buy insurance respectively for each member. That’d provide an allotted sum dedicated to each individual under the insurance policy.
• But if you are looking into family insurance, all the members will be covered under one single insurance package. Unlike the former variant, family insurance has an allotment dedicated to the entire family, which is to be shared. So, if your family has two other members with an insured sum of 4 lacs INR, the cluster would be sharing the same amount. Thus, a health insurance policy for the family will only dispatch the stipulated amount irrespective of the individual requiring healthcare assistance.
• But if you are looking into family insurance, all the members will be covered under one single insurance package. Unlike the former variant, family insurance has an allotment dedicated to the entire family, which is to be shared. So, if your family has two other members with an insured sum of 4 lacs INR, the cluster would be sharing the same amount. Thus, a health insurance policy for the family will only dispatch the stipulated amount irrespective of the individual requiring healthcare assistance.
• Family insurance plans offer age-restricted renewals. So, if the oldest member were to breach the maximum threshold, the presiding members won’t be able to forward any amount prescribed by the policy.
• If a child migrates to an individual plan, eventually, the credit for their waiting period is lost.
• For a family plan, any member issuing a claim can nullify the No Claim Bonus or NCB for that fiscal year.
• Generally, kids and immediate dependents are covered in a family plan. But for cases where you’d want to include your in-laws or grandparents, individual plans remain their only plausible option.

Verdict

This is more of a strategy than a choice since you can opt a heterogenous plan, here’s what you can do:

• If your family consists of younger members,Family Health Insurance Policy will fare better for apparent reasons until the members cross their age threshold for the policy.
• For families without any history of chronic illnesses, the family plan suits them best. Moreover, they remain under a certain price bracket that provides financial convenience.
• But if you are someone at a higher risk of any significant illness, subscribe to individual insurance covers so that the entire family can rely on the sum insured in the family plan.
• If you have parents in the older age bracket, purchase individual insurance covers. This step will ensure you protect the NCB from being nullified in case your parents require serious medical expenses.

So, to sum it all up, younger families are recommended to buy a family cover while buying individual covers for members who are at a higher risk of requiring serious medical attention.