Due to a sedentary lifestyle, even the younger generation is also suffering from life-threatening ailments like cancer, chronic kidney disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), every year nearly 1.7 billion hearts stop working. Further, more and more youngsters are suffering from oral cancer as they hook on smoking, tobacco, or gutkha. Let’s know about the Critical Illness Insurance Policy.
A critical illness in a family can spell financial disaster for you and your family. The situation becomes worse if the breadwinner loses his/her job due to critical ailments. Apart from medical expenses, the need would arise to make arrangements for paying other household expenses, including loan EMI, kids’ fees, etc. To combat this situation, it is imperative to buy a critical illness insurance policy This amount can be used to meet both medical and household expenses.
Critical illness plans pay a lump sum in case of the insured contracts with one of the specified critical illnesses. The sum assured is payable on diagnosis of the illness, irrespective of the actual medical expenses incurred. Since it is a fixed benefit plan, it works over and above the standard indemnity-based medical insurance plan. You can claim from both the plans simultaneously. A claim under a critical illness policy is paid after the insured survives the survival period specified in the policy. In most cases, it is 30 days. Also, any critical ailment diagnosed within the first 90 days and death within 30 days following the diagnosis of critical ailment is usually not covered.
Concerning diseases, most of the insurers cover eight ailments, but some go ahead to cover up to 20 critical illnesses.
Case Study
Mr. Rajiv Shukla was in his office when suddenly he started feeling dizzy, and before anyone could realize it, he collapsed. His colleagues took him to a nearby hospital where doctors diagnosed it as a heart attack. For the next one week, the hospital became his home. On the day of discharge, the hospital staff handed him a bill of Rs 5 lakhs. The sudden hospitalisation caused a major hole in his pocket and in the absence of any insurance; he had no choice but to dig into his savings which he had kept for his first family foreign trip. Further, as the breadwinner was unable to work for the next two months, the situation further deteriorated. Again he dipped into his savings to meet his household expenses.
Now, let’s look at the case of Mr. Amit Verma. He too was in hospital for a week after a heart attack. Fortunately, Mr. Amit had taken a mediclaim policy and critical illness insurance of Rs 10 lakhs each. His mediclaim took care of his entire hospitalization expenses of Rs. 10 lakhs. After a month when Amit recovered, for the sanctioned, he filed for a critical illness claim of Rs. 10 lakhs. While his mediclaim policy took care of hospitalization expenses, his critical illness policy amount helped him in meeting household expenses and loan EMIs.
