health insurance Archives – Vipin Khandelwal

Health Insurance Premium – Tax deductions you should not miss

December 20, 2016 by Vipin Khandelwal

Wealth is lost, nothing is lost

Health is lost, something is lost

Well, times have changed. Today, a bill from a hospital can leave a large hole in your pocket.

If you talk to advisers and financial planners, their primary focus is to build your protection or insurance portfolio even before they start talking about your investments. The reason is simple.

You see, it may take you years to build adequate wealth. But an insurance cover can easily help you tide any large medical emergency requirements.

The better news for you is that even the tax department guys support your purchase of an insurance cover. They do it by providing exemptions on life and health insurance premium.

Under section 80D of the Income Tax Act, 1961, mediclaim / health insurance premium that you pay is exempt from income tax. In short, you don’t have to pay tax on income used for buying health insurance.

Here is how it works.

What is Top Up and Super Top Up Health Insurance?

April 13, 2016April 12, 2016 by Vipin Khandelwal

In an earlier post I wrote about Health Insurance and what factors matter in selecting one. I compared 3 health insurance plans too – that of Apollo Munich, Max Bupa and Religare.

As you would understand by now, when you take a Health Insurance Policy, you are allowed to claim expenses against any medical treatments (as specified in the policy document) upto the amount of Sum Insured.

The question is what would happen if your medical expenses go beyond the Sum Insured. For example, you have a health insurance cover of Rs. 5 lacs. But for an unfortunate event that required hospitalisation, the medical bills ran upto Rs. 9 lacs.

Your health insurance would cover the expenses upto Rs. 5 lacs only. Where would you arrange the balance Rs. 4 lacs?

The simple answer is you would have to pay out of your own pocket, putting a dent in your finances.

Well, there is another solution to this problem. It is to buy a Top Up health insurance cover.

Buying Health Insurance – A comparison of 3 plans

January 21, 2019April 8, 2016 by Vipin Khandelwal

Updated version of this post is here. Buying health insurance – Comparison of 5 plans

I thought investing in mutual funds was a huge problem for you and me. Turns out I was so wrong.

Buying Health Insurance is a much bigger pain. I guess climbing the Everest would be easier. I don’t know from which planet did the creators of health insurance products come, but they have succeeded in scaring the hell out of us.

When the plans are presented to common janta like you and me, all I can feel is heads spinning.

Room rent capping, disease wise sub limits, waiting period for specific diseases and pre-existing diseases, co-payments, domiciliary hospitalisation, organ donor, emergency ambulance, renewals, no-claim bonus, refills, super top ups, top ups, vaccination, ….(stop for breathing…), how many things one needs to look at before deciding what makes sense?

I have spent over 24 hours (real hours) reading, talking and absorbing details on various health insurance websites and the plans they have to offer. Frankly, I am yet to recover.

Now I agree that there is a ton of useful material out there that already details what you should look for in buying health insurance. Even after going through those super helpful guides the evaluation of health insurance plans is simply no fun.

Anyways, after much dilly dallying, I decided to take the bull by the horns.