Financial planning is a stepwise procedure to meet your objectives. A financial plan is your guide through various stages of life. It allows you to stay in control of your investments, expenses, and income to ensure you meet your financial goals. Financial planning helps to:
- Build wealth over the long-term
- Plan for post-retirement years
- Meet education expenses
- Be ready to deal with emergencies
- Live with peace of mind
Importance of health insurance in financial planning
Every financial planner will recommend you to include a health insurance plan in your investment portfolio. This is to ensure your planning does not go awry in case of an unexpected medical emergency. Rising treatment costs and an increase in the number of lifestyle diseases can be financially crippling if you fail to avail a family health insurance policy.
Here are four benefits of a family health plan:
- Affordable cover for the entire family
A family floater insurance policy provides an affordable cover for you, your spouse, dependent parents, and children.In some cases, it also covers dependent in-laws and siblings. Often, the premium on a family plan is lower as compared to the total amount you may pay for buying individual coverage for each member.
- Sharing sum insured
Family medical insurance plans ensure that the sum insured (SI) is available for every insured member. In case afamily member requires hospitalization, and you need to use a portion of the SA to pay for the related expenses, the balance is still available for other insured members.
- Easier to manage
In such a plan, you insure your loved ones in a single policy rather than availing of multiple individual mediclaims. Ensuring you do not miss the renewal dates for individual plans is cumbersome. With a family floater plan, it becomes simpler to handle the health insurance requirements of every family member.
- Tax benefits
Section 80D provides tax deductions on the premium paid to acquire health coverage. The available benefits depend on the age of the insured. These include:
- If all insured members are below 60 years: INR 50,000
- If you and spouse are below 60 years and parents are over the age of 60: INR 75,000
- If you, spouse, and parents are above 60 years: INR 100,000
Any expenses that you incur towards preventive health check-ups for an amount of up to INR 5,000 are also eligible for tax benefits within the overallaforementioned limits.
Some covers available under a family floater plan include:
- Hospitalization expenses
- Day-care treatments
- Pre- and post-hospitalization expenses
- Ambulance charges
- Hospital cash
During the current pandemic, family floater plans also provide coronavirus health insurance. If any insured member tests positive for COVID-19 and requires hospitalization, the family floater insurance policy covers the treatment expenses.
Various insurers offer several health plans.You mustreview the features, inclusions and exclusions, and premium before making a decision. Additionally, check if the plan offers COVID-19 health insurance coverage to ensure that you do not need another policy to meet treatment costs.