OneInsure Blog
Post By Mariya Panwala
Health Insurance – Should You Switch Or Stick To Your Insurer?
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Switch or Stick to current insurer
With over 30 General Insurers to choose from, the consumer at times may find it tough to decide who to go with. Also, after having bought the policy from a particular health insurer, one might have easy tendencies to switch to another insurer while renewing the policy for the next year. This may happen due to the availability of varied features in another insurer’s product. In this article however, we suggest, you stick to your current health insurer. Why? To know the reasons, read our list below where we discuss the benefits of staying with one health insurer over switching to another.
Waiting Period may start afresh
Health insurance plans come with a waiting period of roughly 1-4 years for pre-existing diseases and specific treatments. Each time you switch your insurer, the waiting period may start afresh in case of new findings. On the other hand, the longer you stick to a single health insurer, the more you near towards completing your waiting period.
“But what if I did not have a pre-existing disease at all?”
Let’s assume when you bought your health cover the last time, you did not have a pre-existing disease at all. Then it seems fair to switch to a new insurer since you haven’t served any waiting period anyway, right? But, here again sticking to your current health insurer has an advantage over switching to a new one. The reason is simple – Suppose you’re switching to a new insurer. This will attract fresh medical tests. Should something come up under the new medical tests, i.e. let’s say, you’ve been diagnosed with an illness, then this will require a waiting period of 1 to 4 years depending on your insurer. However, if you continue with the existing insurer, then you do not have to worry about this at all. You will be covered for the same illness without having to serve any waiting period. Not to forget, the fresh medical tests may also affect the premium amount that you’re paying currently.
To ease the pain of paperwork
After going through the pain of several procedures of paperwork, you surely do not want to go through all of that again. Sticking to your current insurer eases out this stress. However, make sure you thoroughly go through the documents when you renew your policy to avoid any misunderstandings which may later lead to rejection of the claim.
It is also important to note that the no-claim-bonus that you get for non-filing of the claims in a particular year is transferable to your new health insurance policy. Hence, the loss of no-claim-bonus benefit while switching to a new health insurer is only a myth.
To conclude, only if your health plan is unable to meet your current requirements like, say you want a maternity cover or OPD, should you port out. Otherwise, sticking to your current health insurer will be a reasonable decision.
