{"id":12914,"date":"2020-08-10T10:53:53","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T10:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/blog\/?p=12914"},"modified":"2022-12-18T16:28:05","modified_gmt":"2022-12-18T16:28:05","slug":"when-covid-19-vaccines-become-available-will-your-health-policy-pay-for-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/when-covid-19-vaccines-become-available-will-your-health-policy-pay-for-them\/","title":{"rendered":"When COVID-19 vaccines become available, will your health policy pay for them?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Published in Money Control.
\nThe world is waiting with bated breath for a vaccine that will finally end the scourge of the novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) that has wreaked havoc on lives and economies globally.
\nIt certainly seems to be on its way \u2013 sooner than originally expected \u2013 but will entail substantial cost, with estimates pegging the cost of Oxford and Moderna vaccine candidates between Rs 1,000-4,500 . Through a tie-up with global vaccine alliance GAVI and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Serum Institute, Pune is likely to offer anti-COVID-19 vaccines at $3 per dose by 2021.
\nWhile vaccines remain critical to the prevention of the pandemic, you will have to foot the bills, unless the central and state governments step in with an alternative funding plan.
\nAre vaccination expenses covered under regular health insurance policies<\/a>?<\/strong>
\nA regular health insurance cover<\/a> reimburses your hospitalisation expenses up to your sum insured, as also pre-admission and post-discharge bills. Therefore, vaccines will usually not make the cut under such regular policies, except for post-animal-bite vaccinations or antidotes. New-born babies\u2019 vaccinations, too, will be covered under policies that pay for pregnancy expenses.
\nWhat kind of policies pay for vaccination expenses?<\/strong>
\nSome policies that cover outpatient department expenses (OPD) will pay for the vaccination expenses too. \u201cWe cover vaccinations under our premium variant, where there is an OPD element of Rs 10,000. This includes routine vaccinations such as Hepatitis B or Influenza. As and when vaccines for COVID-19 are developed, those expenses will be paid for too,\u201d says Nikhil Apte, Chief Product Officer, Health Insurance<\/a>, Royal Sundaram General Insurance.
\nIn future, as more insurers launch OPD products, it is likely that vaccinations will be paid for as part of preventive healthcare costs. For now, the number of such products \u2013 and coverage for vaccines under these \u2013 remain limited. \u201cYou need to check if your policy specifically covers vaccinations. Generally, these are not covered as they do not qualify as treatment procedures, but are preventive in nature. And regular health covers are not meant for preventive care,\u201d says Abhishek Bondia, Co-Founder, SecureNow.in. \u200bIn fact, vaccines are specifically excluded \u2013 not eligible for claim \u2013 under some policies.
\nThis apart, products with maternity benefits will also take care of the new-born\u2019s vaccinations. These include BCG, Measles, Hepatitis B, Chicken Pox and so on. However, a policy that pays for pregnancy expenses will also come with higher premiums, besides a waiting period of up to four years for this particular cover.
\nHowever, maternity and OPD benefit covers are costlier than regular covers. For example, a 35-year-old buying a regular Rs 5-lakh cover will have to pay an annual premium Rs 6,827 under ICICI Lombard\u2019s iHealth Plus policy. If you were to add the outpatient department, wellness and preventive care and maternity benefit add-on to this base cover, you will have to shell out Rs 9,925 a year.
\nIs there any standard list of vaccines that maternity benefit policies will pay for?<\/strong>
\nInsurance companies will reimburse the new-born\u2019s expenses in line with government of India\u2019s National Immunisation Schedule, up to 90 days from the date of delivery. Once you include the baby in the cover, vaccine expenses will be paid for till the child turns five, depending on the policy terms and conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published in Money Control. The world is waiting with bated breath for a vaccine that will finally end the scourge of the novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) that has wreaked havoc on lives and economies globally. It certainly seems to be on its way \u2013 sooner than originally expected \u2013 but will entail substantial cost, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[410,319],"tags":[36,1407],"class_list":["post-12914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-coverage","category-media","tag-health-insurance","tag-health-insurance-cover"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"Aishwary Mishra","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12914"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24882,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12914\/revisions\/24882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}