How to reduce health insurance premiums without sacrificing coverage—key tips | Mint

A health insurance premium is the amount of money a person pays to a health insurance company for health care coverage. Premiums can be paid monthly or annually. This depends on the kind and duration of health insurance opted by the consumer.

Some of the leading health insurance companies in India are: HDFC Ergo, Aditya Birla Health insurance, TATA AIG General, ICICI Lombard among others.

Now it is crucial to remember that you need to clearly check the claim settlement ratio, solvency ratio, and number of hospitals in the network before applying for a health insurance cover.

Now once you have selected the desired company and policy after much research then comes the option of methods through which you can look to reduce health insurance premiums without harming your provided coverage. This way you can get the best of both i.e., a good health insurance cover along with a lower premium.

How to lower health insurance premiums without reducing coverage?

Yes, by adopting smart strategies like increasing deductibles, opting for long-term policies, leveraging no-claim bonuses, and comparing plans annually.

Now to lower one’s premiums an individual can adopt smart strategies like increasing deductibles. To ensure that you pay a lower premium try to get health insurance as early as possible, because the healthier you are the better it is and lower are the premiums. Hence, one should opt for long term policies, leverage no claim bonuses and go for a policy only after deeper analysis.

What are the top methods to cut premium costs?

• Raise deductibles: Try to raise deductibles slightly to lower premiums, while retaining full coverage.
• Read the conditions: Ensure that you read all the documents, terms and conditions carefully.
• Buy early: Apply for a policy early to lock in with a lower premium.
• Multi-year policies: Apply for 2 or 3 year plans for discounts.
• No claim bonus: Maintain claim free year to earn premium discounts.
• Maintain good health: Simply keep up with good health to ensure policy usage.

How does policy customization help?

Please read the documents of your health insurance policy carefully before signing. If in doubt, reach out to the customer support service. Remove unnecessary add-ons and hazy offers like maternity coverage if not required. Further, align co-payment clauses as per your financial capacity and limitations only.

Why is comparing plans critical?

Insurance companies revise the terms and conditions along with prices annually. That is why it is important for aspirational applicants to carefully compare different plans and clearly understand the difference between them before opting for any one of them.

By using online comparison tools, one can identify better deals according to their age group, health history and individual needs, that too without compromising on the coverage.