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Health Insurance

Post By Joan

Getting Married? Time To Take A Look At Your Health Insurance

Marriage - A lifelong commitment between two individuals promising to love and cherish each other for better or for worse for the rest of their lives.

Marriage is an important event in the life of every individual. We promise to commit ourselves to another being for the remainder of our lives, and that is most definitely a big step. Even before saying I do, we prepare ourselves to make certain adjustments to our lifestyle to suit the likes and dislikes of our partner. This makes the whole transition of being a bachelor to a husband or a wife smoother. A crucial factor, however, that many newly-married couples neglect to think about is the impact that marriage has on their financial portfolio, and an important element of every financial portfolio is health insurance.

If you are taking the plunge anytime soon, here’s why you need to look at your health insurance

Individual health plans or family floater plan

There are two ways to avail health insurance for your new family - buy individual health plans for you and your spouse or get a family floater plan.

In case of individual health plans, both you and your partner will have a separate dedicated sum insured, whereas under a family floater plan, the two of you will be covered under a single sum insured. While there are benefits to both the plans, but in case of family floater policy, the biggest advantage is its low cost and the fact that you only need to manage one less policy. If you wish to have children soon, a good health insurance option is to avail a family floater plan since they (your kids) can be added to the cover.

Should I get a maternity cover?

Whichever policy you decide it go with, consider availing maternity insurance as an add-on to your health insurance plan. To understand the importance of maternity cover, consider this example:

Rohit and Priya were planning their wedding. When they were done with all the preparations, Rohit had a word with his financial planner concerning what the couple's financial future would be like. The financial planner suggested that they include a maternity cover to their policy. Rohit took the advice and four years later when Priya delivered a baby girl the couple was over the moon. They did not have to worry about the hospital costs of childbirth, all thanks to Rohit’s decision to get a maternity cover right when they got married.

The thing about maternity insurance that you should know is that there is generally a waiting period of 3-5 years before you can make a claim on maternity expenses. So the wise thing to do if you want to have children is get a maternity cover right after tying the knot.

Bottom line

Consider looking at the various family floater options in the market if you are getting married anytime soon. You can include new members to the plan quite easily. Additionally, you can benefit from high coverage at low premium rates. Also, make sure to look for policies that have exhaustive features as well as a substantial sum insured. Check to see for benefits or add-ons like maternity cover, if you plan to have children in the future. Keep in mind that there is always a waiting period involved, so opt for this rider early on, possibly right after getting married.

Marriage brings about a lot of changes and a good health insurance policy should help you reflect as well as cherish those changes.