What are the Types of Health Insurance in India?

Individual health insurance

This plan covers only a single person. It provides financial protection against medical expenses up to the insured amount and includes:

• Hospitalization expenses
• Pre- and post-hospitalization costs
• Surgery and medicines
• Doctor’s fee
• Diagnostic tests
• Hospital room rent
• Other expenses, like ambulance charges, insured by the policy

Family floater health insurance

This policy covers all members of the family on one plan. In other words, you don’t have to obtain separate individual policies for each member of your family. Moreover, the premium amount is calculated on the age of the oldest member of your family. This way, younger families enjoy lower premiums. This plan is suitable for families looking for collective coverage, as it allows multiple types of health insurance claims up to the sum insured.

Group health insurance

Employers usually offer these policies to their employees as a part of their benefits. They cover a whole group of employees under one plan. They have a lower premium than individual plans and provide basic coverage for the policyholders.

Critical illness insurance

Under this policy, the policyholder receives a lump sum benefit upon being diagnosed with insured health conditions. It can be cancer, a heart attack, or a similar disease. The coverage amount is fixed before time, and one is entitled to a claim against a critical diagnosis and not on getting admitted.

Senior citizen health insurance

This policy is tailored for individuals aged 65 and above. Health insurance for senior citizens offers coverage for age-specific health concerns and generally includes higher premiums due to increased health risks.

Maternity health insurance

It is designed to cover expenses related to pregnancy and childbirth. This type of policy includes pre- and post-natal care and newborn cover.

Personal accident insurance

It offers financial support in case of accidental injury or death. It provides a lump sum amount to the insured or their family as compensation.

Top-up and super top-up health insurance

These are secondary layers of health insurance. Both top-up and super top-up plans act as secondary layers of coverage, kicking in when your primary policy's sum insured falls short. They feature a deductible clause, meaning you'll need to bear a certain initial amount before the plan starts covering the remaining expenses. For example, you have a ₹5 lakh base policy and a ₹5 lakhs top-up with a ₹2 lakhs deductible. You would pay the first ₹2 lakhs of any claim, and the top-up will cover the remaining amount up to ₹5 lakhs. The key difference is that top-up plans apply the deductible to each individual claim, while super top-up plans apply it to the total of all claims in a policy year. This makes super top-up plans more cost-effective for frequent or high-value claims.