Family Health Insurance vs Family Floater Plan: What to Buy?

A wise individual would also want to secure their family’s future keeping in mind various factors like a sudden death or an unexpected major illness, or an unforeseen unemployment in the family. When a family has insurance in hand to take care of situations like this, the living standards of the family can be easily maintained for a while before the affected get back on their legs. An insurance plan basically covers all unexpected medical expenses and provides a financial backup to the insured as and when needed.

Insurance providers have a lot of policy options, and based on the need of an individual, they can buy the best policy that they think will suit them, and even customise any policy according to their needs. Online portals of these insurance companies make things easier by putting out all the options on a single page and enable customers to choose the best plan from the comfort of their own premises without any confusions caused by a third person like the insurance company or a broker.

The premium calculator provided by insurance companies makes the work much simpler by giving the correct premium that one has to pay according to their needs. A few companies that provide insurance policies are Life Insurance Corporation of India, HDFC Ergo Health Insurance, Royal Sundaram, Star Finance, Bharti AXA etc. and different types of insurance policies available in the market are include Family Health Insurance, mediclaim, car insurance, life insurance, travel insurance, motor insurance etc.

Health Insurance:

Health insurance is the safest way to provide cover for unexpected medical expense arising out of hospitalization of the policyholder or any of their family members in case of a family floater plan. The unexpected expense may arise due to sudden major illnesses, an accident, or due to a pre-existing illness. Hospitalisation expense includes cover for consultation fee, pre-hospitalisation and post hospitalisation charges, surgery costs, medicinal costs, organ transplant cost, daily hospital cash benefits, in case of unemployment due to pro-longed sickness, domiciliary hospitalisation costs, out-patient benefits etc.

Health insurance offers comprehensive coverage, whereas mediclaim pays out only to cover expenses that arise due to hospitalisation. In case of health insurance, there are options to avail coverage for an individual and for a family of up to 4 or 5.

Although more and more individuals are showing interest in health insurance, they don’t have a good enough idea of what plan to buy in order to meet their needs. This confusion arises mainly due to the middle men or brokers who try to sell off a not-so-good insurance plan with higher premium to hit their sales targets easily. To avoid such confusion, insurance companies have come up with a tool called the insurance premium calculator to help individuals come down at a premium rate just by entering their details and insurance requirements.

A premium calculator is a must for choosing family health insurance because you obviously want to pay the right premium according to your needs when it comes to the welfare of your family. Insurance companies like Royal Sundaram and HDFC ERGO health insurance have a 24-hour online customer service call center to cater to the needs of their customers. You can call them and clarify your doubts regarding the premium or about the coverage offered by the policy.

Family Health Insurance v/s Family Floater Plan:

A health insurance policy offers coverage to a member of the family whose name is on the policy documents. Based on the insurance plan and coverage, the policy will work in such a way that he or she will not be having financial constraint when they face an unforeseen health mishap. In contrast, a family floater plan would cover all the members in their family and the sum insured can be used by any member covered by the plan.

Let us say a family of 5 has separate health insurance plans for individual family member, each offering almost the same coverage. Another family has a family floater plan that covers the same number of people in their family. The family that chose separate covers for individual member would pay a higher insurance premium than the one who that took a floater plan. Undoubtedly, a family can get better benefits and waivers when they go for a family health insurance than someone who had opted for individual insurance plans to cover all the members in their family.

In the former insurance plan, one can avail the cashless benefit in any of the hospitals covered by the insurance provider’s cashless hospital network, as this policy enables the insured to get hospitalised for the treatment of any covered ailment without worrying about the expense out of their own pocket. The insurer will take care of the settlement of the hospital bills and medical receipts. Also, the premium paid by the insured for this policy is tax exempted under section 80D of the Income Tax Act.

A family health insurance normally has a higher premium since the sum insured is higher and covers the whole family. A normal family floater plan covers the insured, their spouse and their children but certain policies extend the coverage for their parents, in-laws and siblings as well. It all depends on the policy and add-ons included. Generally, as the number of people covered by an insurance policy increases, the premium amount also increases. Adding an additional member to a family floater plan is a bit easier because insurance companies happily do that in exchange for additional premium.

A mediclaim policy for a family can be taken by families that have fixed budgets as well. The cumulative premium they pay for the family is lesser when compared to the premium payable separately for every individual in the family. With family floater plans, if there is only one claim in the entire year, it can be equal to the sum assured.

A drawback in the family floater insurance plan is the premium is determined on the basis with the age of the senior-most family member and insurance companies generally allow renewals till a particular age only. This also means that if the senior-most family member reaches that age, no further renewals are will be allowed and none of the remaining members will have the option of carry forward the policy.

In that case they will have to look for individual policies to vouch for their wellbeing. Companies like Bharti AXA health insurance and HDFC ERGO health insurance will offer a list of services included in their different policies and the list is available on their online portal through.

So, the best way to go about this would be to take a family floater plan for you and your immediate family members. In case you think that you might be prone to multiple situations covered by a floater plan, it’s wise to go for a separate cover for yourself and take a family floater plan for your spouse and children. Purchasing individual cover for your parents and grandparents would also be a sure shot way of securing everyone near and dear.

Disclaimer : *Policybazaar does not endorse, rate or recommend any particular insurer or insurance product offered by an insurer.