Ashish graduated a couple of years ago and was lucky to get placed in a top IT company. With a stable job, he is planning to soon get married. His health-insurance is covered under a corporate group health insurance policy and forms part of his CTC. An amount is deducted from his monthly salary. How should Ashish be assured that this is adequate?

The benefits of this policy can be availed at the time of hospitalization of those covered in the plan typically the employee and dependents. An employer-sponsored health insurance is usually a master policy, which covers all the employees in the organization and is mandatory for all employees. Such policies are usually cheaper than individual policies and may seem attractive to the employees.

But do they provide enough coverage? Employees such as Ashish must make sure they know the benefits offered, the sublimits and the sum assured at the time of joining. It may not be enough to cover two claims in one year or sum assured may be insufficient to cover the actual expenses.

Ashish cannot accurately foresee his actual medical expenses to evaluate whether the cover is adequate. He should however make an estimate, in high risk cases such as his elderly parents. If he is able to estimate the costs of say 10 days of hospitalization in a year, he will be able to evaluate whether his insurance covers such an eventuality. It is prudent to have another health insurance policy that adequately covers his parents, as a top up.

An independent health policy may also come in handy when he is in between jobs. What if his next employer did not provide the same level of health cover? Some companies have insurance policies that require a co-pay arrangement, exclusion of family members or reduce sum assured and other limits in order to cut costs. Ashish must make sure he buys atleast one standalone health insurance plan which he can control, in addition to the group coverage. He must get a family floater when young at better premiums covering more illnesses. He could consider bundling it with a critical illness plan and/or personal accident cover.

The content on this page is courtesy Centre for Investment Education and Learning (CIEL). Contributions by Girija Gadre, Arti Bhargava and Labdhi Mehta.