{"id":4750,"date":"2017-06-15T07:57:24","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T07:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/blog\/?p=4750"},"modified":"2026-02-07T16:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T16:21:14","slug":"options-overseas-medical-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/options-overseas-medical-treatment\/","title":{"rendered":"Options for overseas medical treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Published in Mint on 14th June,2017<\/p>\n

When you travel abroad, it\u2019s advisable to buy travel insurance. This insurance policy pays for medical emergencies other than insuring any flight inconveniences. It doesn\u2019t of course cover planned hospitalization, but did you know there are health insurance plans<\/a> that cover planned international hospitalization as well? Here we discuss some of these plans in the market and get views of experts.<\/p>\n

Plans in the market\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

<\/b>A typical health insurance policy pays for your hospital bills but only if the hospitalization takes place in India. Now, some insurers have started offering health insurance that covers hospitalization abroad\u00a0in addition to insurance in India. However, there are some caveats you need to be aware of.
\nFor instance, Apollo Munich Health Insurance Co. Ltd has a rider called Critical Advantage. A rider is like an add-on that you take with a base policy. So you can take Critical Advantage with any of Apollo Munich\u2019s basic health insurance policies,<\/a> provided the sum insured under the base policy is at least Rs10 lakh.\u00a0However this rider specifically insures only against eight critical conditions like cancer, neurosurgery and coronary artery bypass surgery. The maximum sum insured under the rider is about Rs3 crore ($500,000). \u201cOur plan also provides for travel expenses of the patient, one attendant and donor if applicable along with accommodation and complete hospitalization expenses up to the sum insured,\u201d said Antony Jacob,\u00a0chief executive officer, Apollo Munich. \u201cThe policy is cashless so the treatment takes place only in one of our network hospitals,\u201d he added. Since this policy insures only planned hospitalization, you need to be diagnosed in India for treatment abroad.
\nMax Bupa Health Insurance Co. Ltd covers international hospitalization under the platinum version of its plan called Heartbeat. This policy offers cashless treatment for nine critical illnesses as well as for emergency hospitalization\u00a0abroad. The maximum sum insured under this plan is Rs1 crore. However, the policy doesn\u2019t provide insurance covers in the US and Canada, and you need to pay extra to included these countries. You can also choose a co-pay up to 20% to lower the premium.
\nReligare Health Insurance Co. Ltd offers two kinds of international health insurance<\/a> covers: one that covers critical illness<\/a> and the other that covers both planned and unplanned hospitalizations. \u201cOur product care offers sum insured up to Rs 6 crore. For sum insured option from Rs50-75 lakh, international cover is available for 12 specified critical illnesses where we cover both planned and emergency hospitalization globally,\u201d said Anuj Gulati, chief executive officer and managing director, Religare Health. \u201cFor sum insured option of Rs1 crore and above, our offering is unique where we offer global coverage of all conditions for both planned and emergency hospitalization,\u201d he added. The maximum sum insured under this plan is Rs6 crore. For option of Rs1 crore and above, the policy doesn\u2019t insure you for hospitalization in the US. You need to pay extra for it. It also has a co-pay clause of 10% for sum insured.\u00a0Also, when you are abroad, the risk coverage period is 45 days per trip and 90 days cumulatively. So, if you are abroad and there is a medical emergency on the 47th day, the policy will not cover you.
\nThen there is the Elite version of\u00a0Royal Sundaram General Insurance Co. Ltd\u2019s Lifeline plan,\u00a0which is available for up to Rs1.5 crore\u00a0of sum insured. This policy again offers two kinds of international covers: for emergencies\u00a0of any kind and planned hospitalisations against 11 critical illnesses.\u00a0For planned hospitalization it also offers to cover the return trip, to a maximum of Rs3 lakh. However, you need to pay extra to include coverage in the US and Canada. The planned hospitalization cover has a co-pay of 20% and in the first year it pays only 50% of the sum insured.
\nCigna TTK Health Insurance Co. Ltd offers international cover, but only for emergencies. \u201cOur in-built benefit in ProHealth Insurance covers medical expenses incurred for emergency in-patient treatments for an illness or injury outside of India up to the sum insured chosen by the policyholder. The insurance claim is paid on a reimbursement basis only in India and in Indian rupees,\u201d said Jyoti Punja, deputy chief executive officer, Cigna TTK. Also, you can claim worldwide emergency hospitalization only once in a policy year,\u201d she added. The sum insured in this health insurance plan is Rs1 crore.<\/p>\n

Should you buy\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

<\/b>While international covers are a solution if you wish to get treatment abroad, they are not a substitute for travel insurance policies. \u201cSome international covers only pay for planned hospitalization whereas travel insurance covers flight inconveniences and emergency hospitalization,\u201d said Nikhil Apte, chief product officer, Royal Sundaram. \u201cHowever these products compliment a travel insurance plan as travel insurance will typically never insure a pre-exiting disease but\u00a0international covers will after the waiting period is over,\u201d added Apte.
\nThese plans can also be very expensive. For instance, \u00a0a 30-year-old buying a sum insured of Rs 50 lakh, would have to pay Rs50,000 to cover planned hospitalization and emergencies. Planned hospitalization that insures only critical illnesses, would cost about Rs25,000 and a pure domestic policy would cost around Rs18,300. \u201cBuying a high sum insured health insurance with comprehensive international cover can be expensive and some insurers offer riders that are more cost-effective because the benefits are sharply defined and available at lower base sum insured as well,\u201d said Kapil Mehta, co-founder, SecureNow.in. \u201cGenerally, the sum insured available is insufficient for overseas care, plus post-hospitalisation expenses are excluded. This means that you may still end up paying over 50% of the costs out of pocket,\u201d he added.
\nAs per Mahavir Chopra, director,\u00a0health, life and strategic\u00a0initiatives, Coverfox.com, these plans may make sense for high net-worth individuals. \u201cMobility has improved considerably and more people are now keen to travel abroad for treatment. Some policyholders opt for very high covers and for them having some sort of international coverage helps,\u201d he said.
\nAs per Nayan C. Shah, MD, Paramount Health Services (TPA) Pvt. Ltd, these are early days before insurers eventually start offering global policies. \u201cIt helps if the policy also takes care of ancillary expenses like travel and accommodation. Even employers that send employees abroad are interested in global covers but for that the policy needs to offer OPD as well as in-patient treatment without any caps. Such policies are available and plans in India need to develop to that level,\u201d he said. So while health insurance plans that cover international hospitalization may excite you, keep in mind the costs and restrictions.<\/p>\n

Additional Read: Overseas Treatment- A crucial health Insurance coverage<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published in Mint on 14th June,2017 When you travel abroad, it\u2019s advisable to buy travel insurance. This insurance policy pays for medical emergencies other than insuring any flight inconveniences. It doesn\u2019t of course cover planned hospitalization, but did you know there are health insurance plans that cover planned international hospitalization as well? Here we discuss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"no","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[229,340,1377,1378],"class_list":["post-4750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-coverage","tag-critical-illness-insurance","tag-travel-insurance","tag-health-insurance-plans","tag-international-health-insurance"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"SecureNow","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4750","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=4750"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34975,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4750\/revisions\/34975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securenow.in\/insuropedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}