Health insurance policy: Should you opt for co-payment?

Apart from high medical inflation, healthcare cost has been on the rise in the country due to the ongoing pandemic. But due to the pandemic’s impact on the economy, there have been salary cuts and salaried professionals are under pressure to make their premium payments. In such a scenario, what are the choices available to you? Well, one of the ways to cut your health insurance premium is by opting for co-payment.

Co-payment is the percentage of hospital bill which the insured has to pay from their own pocket in the event of a claim. If your hospital bill is Rs 1 lakh, and the admissible claim is Rs 90,000, then in case of 10% of co-payment, you have to pay Rs 9,000 from your pocket. While going for co-payments. it is very important to strike the right balance as high co-payments can strike you hard at the time of crisis.

How much to opt for?

Experts say ideally one should not opt for co-payment in health insurance policies. But if one cannot pay a high premium then 10-15% co-payment can be opted for, as buying a health insurance policy should always be the topmost priority. Generally, your premium amount gets reduced by the percentage of copay opted by you. For example, if the co-pay is 20% your premium rates also get reduced by the same percentage.

Pitfalls

We often get swayed by low premium rates and, therefore, most of the times, in a hurry to sign the dotted bills, we don’t read the policy documents properly and gets surprised when asked to share the bill which could be as high as 20%. Therefore,  one should make it a point to carefully read the conditions in which co-pay may be applicable.

Last but not the least, if you are going for co-payment do not forget to create an emergency fund, which should be touched only if there is a medical emergency. It is advisable to invest this money either in liquid funds or savings account as there may be sudden cash requirement.