Last week we had written about which features you should compare before buying a health insurance plan and as promised, in today’s edition we will compare some of the popular health insurance plans you can look forward too. As all of you know there is abundance of health insurance plans available in the market; some of them are good while some of them are just useless. So it becomes very difficult for you to recognize which is the best among them and which is the one that you should consider buying.

We do understand that having a health insurance plan for you and your family is a critical component of your financial life as not having one can impact your financial goals very severely. So we have tried to compare the features of 5 health insurance plans which we feel are among the best available in the market.

Out of the 5 plans covered in this article, 4 are from private insurers while 1 is from non-private (PSU) insurer.

Mentioned below is the table comparing features of 5 Health insurance plans:

Health Insurance Comparison
Feature	Company Name
	Apollo Munich	Max Bupa	HDFC ERGO	ICICI Lombard	National Insurance
	Plan Name
	Optima Restore	Heartbeat Gold	Health Suraksha	Complete Health Insurance	Individual Mediclaim
Sub-limits on Room Rent	No sublimit on Room Rent	Coverage for Single Private room	No sublimit on Room Rent	No sublimit on Room Rent in Base Policy	Room Rent upto 1% of SA per day & 2% of SA per day for ICU. Subject to an overall limit of 25% of SA.
Pre-Existing Diseases	Covered after 36 months	Covered after 48 months	Covered after 48 months	Covered after 4 years (SA upto 2 lakhs) ; after 2 years (SA above 3 lakhs)	Covered after 48 months
Co-payment	0% Co-payment	20% Co-payment for insured above the age of 65 yrs	Data not Available	0% Co-payment	Data not Available
Network Hospital	Tie Up with more than 4,000 hospitals	Tie Up with more than 1,400 hospitals	Tie Up with more than 4,000 hospitals	Tie Up with more than 4,000 hospitals	Data not Available
Pre & Post Hospitalization Expenses	Pre - 60 Days; Post - 180 Days	Pre - 30 Days; Post - 60 Days	Pre - 60 Days; Post - 90 Days	Pre - 30 Days; Post - 60 Days	Pre - 30 Days; Post - 60 Days
No Claim Bonus in SA	50% of Basic SA (Max. upto 100%)	Not Applicable	5% of Basic SA (Max. upto 50%)	10% of Basic SA (Max. upto 50%)	5% of Basic SA (Max. upto 50%)
Premium*	30 yr - Rs 6,302 40 yr - Rs 7,185 50 yr - Rs 11,026	30 yr - Rs 7,966 40 yr - Rs 10,307 50 yr - Rs 17,834	30 yr - Rs 7,254 40 yr - Rs 8,137 50 yr - Rs 14,641	30 yr - Rs 6,961 40 yr - Rs 8,879 50 yr - Rs 13,297	30 yr - Rs 6,199 40 yr - Rs 9,325 50 yr - Rs 15,584

SA = Sum Assured
* Premium considered is for an Individual with a Sum Assured of Rs 5 lakhs and is inclusive of service tax.

Sub-limits on Room Rent

As you can see from the above table most of the private insurers have abolished capping room rent expenses but non-private insurers (National Insurance) still put a maximum limit on the room rent they are ready to bear. Even though there is no sublimit in ICICI policy but they do give you an option to reduce your premium by opting for sub-limits for certain diseases. PersonalFN believes there should not be any maximum limit on room rent expenses in your health insurance policy.

Pre-Existing Diseases

Most of the health insurance companies cover pre-existing diseases only after completion of 4 continuous policy years. Some insurers might cover it before as well depending upon the disease which you are suffering from. So look for policies which have least number of years of waiting periods to cover pre-existing diseases.

Co-payment

Co-payment clause is applicable mostly in case of pre-existing diseases or if the age is above 60 years; since these cases might not be applicable for you at the time of buying the policy, so most of you fail to check this clause. PersonalFN believes it’s essential to check co-payment clause before buying any policy as it can have a big impact in future. For e.g. Max Bupa has 20% co-payment clause for an insured above the age of 65 years. It means, if you are buying the policy when you are 45 years old then you are eligible to get full claim from Max Bupa but after 20 years when you cross 65 years of age and the real need for a health plan arises then Max Bupa will be liable for only 80% of all your claim amounts while you have to bear the other 20% of the cost.

Network Hospital

Nowadays most of the insurance companies have a tie up with around 3,000 – 4,000 hospitals but you should not get carried away with this number. You should also look at list of hospitals which have tie up with the insurance company in your city. The reason why we are emphasizing on this is because we have already seen this happening with one of our client who had a health insurance policy with decent number of network hospitals list but most of them belonged to different city then the one he resided in.

Pre & Post Hospitalization Expenses

Generally most of the insurers cover 30 days pre and 60 days post hospitalization expenses, but there are some insurers who cover more number of days as well such as Apollo Munich Optima Restore policy covers 60 days pre and 180 days post hospitalization expenses while HDFC ERGO Health Suraksha covers 60 days pre and 90 days post hospitalization expenses.

No Claim Bonus in Sum Assured

Even though no claim bonus is not a very crucial feature and should not be considered individually while buying a health insurance plan but it can enhance your sum assured at the time of renewal in case of claim free policy year. Apollo Munich provides no claim bonus of 50% of basic sum assured for a claim free year, so if you have 2 claim free years then your sum assured in the successive year will be double of the 1st policy year; but please note that if the claim arises in the 3rd policy year then your bonus will decrease by 50% of basic sum assured as well.

Premium

In the above table we have mentioned premium for 3 different individuals having 30 year, 40 year and 50 years of age. At age 30, National has the least premium while at age 40 and 50 Apollo Munich has the least premium. But premium should not be the only consideration while buying a health insurance plan; you should always check its feature before jumping on to premium. If features suits your requirement then only check its premium as there are policies available in the market which has premium much less than National and Apollo Munich but might not suit your requirement.

If you are looking out for a health insurance, then you may consider going for any of the above mentioned Health insurance policy or any other that you come across. What matters the most is that whichever policy you go for must suit your requirement. Having a good health insurance plan will ensure that you are prepared in advance to face the uncertainties of life.

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Comments
vikram_premkumar@ajg.com Apr 22, 2014 Excellent article…. Granularity of information removes all queries. An example for No Claim Bonus in SA will bring more clarity.  I am still confused after reading the last phrase.  Basis the information mentioned in this section, my understanding is : if an Insured as Rs.1 Lakh as SA (1st year – e.g. Jan. 2010); then while renewing for 2nd year (Jan. 2011), the SA will be increased to Rs.1.5 Lakhs (50% of 1 Lakh given as NCB); then while renewing for 3rd year (Jan. 2012), the SA will be increased to Rs.2.25 Lakhs (50% of 1.5 Lakhs which was the SA in 2nd year).  If there is a claim in 3rd year (e.g. in May 2012), then while renewing for 4th year (Jan 2013), then there will be no NCB, in fact it will be in negative (-50%), thus the SA will be reduced to Rs. ?????? Query on comparison table…. Out of 4 PSU, why National Insurance was selected for comparison ?  Is it means that comparison is already done between all 4 PSU companies and out of them, National Insurance is the best one… to be compared with private players ?
neha.nidhi2560@gmail.com Apr 24, 2018 2+1 age 34 my husband my age also 34 my son age 11 year i want hdfc shurksha and optima 3 lakh insurance need please compare mail send hdfc and apollo restre plan 2 lakh for my family
leno2001ics@gmail.com Apr 29, 2014 Yes , It's really helpful comparison table , I got confuse to decide the health insurance after seeing this now I am very clear to choose the best one.
kuvijaysai007@gmail.com Feb 09, 2014 excellent comparison at one glance this article has really helped me decide which plan i want to buy
warrierjayan@hotmail.com Jul 15, 2014 what about Star health insurance? for individual or family people are preferring this.

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