7 Essential Add-on Covers to Add in Parents Health Insurance

What is an Add-on Cover in Parents Health Insurance?

An add-on cover in parents health insurance is an additional benefit that enhances coverage of a basic mediclaim insurance policy. Also known as a rider, it allows policyholders to include extra features that cater to specific healthcare needs, ensuring better financial and medical support.

While standard health insurance for parents plan may not cover all medical expenses, choosing the right add-on covers allows you to customise their policy for broader protection and reduced out-of-pocket costs. Although these add-ons come with an extra premium, they are often more cost-effective than purchasing a separate policy.

Must-Have Add-on Covers in Parents Health Insurance Policy

Take a look at the top 7 add-on covers that you can opt for with parents health insurance policy:

1. Room Rent Waiver

   In a standard mediclaim insurance policy, hospital room rent is subject to a capping limit. On choosing a room that exceeds this limit, you are required to pay the difference out of pocket. However, by adding a room rent waiver add-on to your parents health insurance policy, you can either increase the sub-limit or remove it entirely, allowing for greater flexibility in hospital room selection. This is particularly beneficial in metropolitan cities, where hospital room charges are significantly higher.

   For instance, if your parents standard health plan has a room rent capping of ₹1500 per night, it may not be sufficient for a multi-speciality hospital in Delhi/NCR or other metropolitan cities. With a room rent waiver add-on, you can increase this sub-limit to ₹5000 per night, ensuring better healthcare facilities and reducing your financial burden.

2. Critical Illness Cover

   As parents age, they might face serious health risks like cancer and heart disease, with treatment costs running into lakhs. A standard medical policy may not be sufficient to cover these costs, making a critical illness cover add-on an essential choice. With this add-on, health insurance companies in India provide a lump-sum amount to the policyholder if he/she is diagnosed with any listed critical illness, regardless of the actual treatment expenses.

   For example, if you have a health insurance policy for parents with a sum insured of ₹10 lakh, you can consider adding a critical illness rider that offers an additional sum insured up to ₹20 lakh. So, if the insured is diagnosed with cancer during the policy term and files a critical illness claim with the insurer, it will pay out a lump sum of ₹20 lakh for the treatment even if the treatment cost is ₹15 lakh. You can use the remaining amount for other additional charges and miscellaneous expenses.

3. Reductions in PED Waiting Period

   Pre-existing diseases like hypertension, diabetes, blood pressure, heart ailments, and thyroid are common in senior citizens. Most health insurance plans impose a waiting period of 2 to 3 years before covering expenses related to these conditions. This means that if your parents are diagnosed with a medical issue linked to a PED during this waiting period, the policy will not cover the treatment costs.

   To avoid this gap in coverage, some insurers offer a reduction in PED waiting period add-on. By paying an additional premium, you can ensure faster access to coverage for PEDs.

4. OPD Care

   As parents age, frequent doctor visits and diagnostic tests become a routine part of healthcare. However, most standard mediclaim plans do not cover such OPD (Outpatient Department) expenses, leaving policyholders to bear these costs out of pocket.

   With the OPD cover add-on, you can include OPD expenses in your parents health insurance policy by paying an additional premium. This coverage typically includes consultation fees, diagnostic tests, prescribed medications, and minor procedures that do not require hospitalisation.

   NOTE: Not every insurer offers this health insurance add-on, so you need to check it at the time of policy purchase or renewal.

5. Co-payment Waivers

   Most of the senior citizen health insurance plans have a co-payment clause that requires the insured to pay a certain percentage of the health insurance claim amount, with the insurer covering the rest. Most of the time, a co-payment of 20% is applicable on health insurance claims for people above 60-years of age. But with this add-on cover in parents health insurance, you can remove the co-payment clause and get your insurer to pay the entire claim amount.

   For example if you have a medical insurance policy of ₹10 lakh, and the claim amount is ₹5 lakh, then you have to pay a 20% co-pay, i.e. ₹1 lakh from your pocket, and the insurance company will pay the remaining ₹4 lakh. But with co-payment waiver add-on, the insurer will pay the entire ₹5 lakh.

   Discover more on this topic: What is Copay in Health Insurance

6. Personal Accident Cover

   With the personal accident cover add-on, you get insurance protection for accidental damages as well. It basically covers permanent disabilities, partial disability, death, etc. In case of an accidental death, the family of the policyholder receives a lump-sum amount from the health insurance company.

7. Hospital Cash Cover

   A hospital cash cover, also known as a hospital cash benefit, is an add-on cover in health insurance that provides a fixed daily cash allowance when the insured is hospitalised for more than 24 hours. This payout is separate from the actual medical expenses covered by the policy and can be used for non-medical expenses such as food, conveyance, nearby hotel stays, etc.