Deepak Yohannan
myinsuranceclub.com
With the new and improved versions of health plans available in the market, your health plan promises to be a treat for you.
One such newly-developed feature available under a few plans is maternity cover. Under the maternity cover option, expenses relating to delivery and pre and post natal hospitalization care are covered. Even the vaccination and pediatric expenses are provided for under the plans. But how important is availing these benefits?
Raising a child is fraught with expenses. Right from the pre-delivery visits to the doctor to the child delivery and even after that the post-natal care, expenses seem to follow you at every stage.
Nothing comes cheap and when it comes to your child, don’t you want the best care available? The question does not need answering because couples never hesitate to go the extra mile to provide for their children.
Take into consideration the meager savings of a middle-class man and you have the eternal problem of providing good facilities to your wife during the most important phase of her life. Won’t it be a boon to have your health plan provide for each of the expenses mentioned in the beginning of the paragraph?
The idea of providing maternity related cover germinated in recent years and so only a handful of plans were developed with this feature. Let’s take a look at the unique benefits of maternity features of some of the plans:
| FEATURES | APOLLO MUNICH EASY HEALTH PLAN | STAR HEALTH WEDDING GIFT PLAN | MAX BUPA HEARTBEAT PLAN |
| Sum Assured AVAILABLE | The SA offered is either 4,5,7.5 or 10 Lakhs | SA offered is either 3 Lakhs or 5 Lakhs. | SA availed can be from 2 Lakhs to 50 Lakhs. |
| DELIVERY EXPENSES LIMIT | For SA 4 and 5 Lakhs, Normal- max.15000 Caesarian- max. 25000 For SA 7.5 and 10 Lakhs, Normal- max. 25000 Caesarian-max.40000 | For SA 3 Lakhs,
Normal- max.15000 Caesarian-max.20000 For SA 5 Lakhs, Normal- max.20000 Caesarian-max.25000 | It comes with 3 variations: SILVER- max.30000 GOLD- max.50000 PLATINUM- max. 1 Lakhs. |
| WAITING PERIOD | Waiting period is 4 years before maternity expenses are covered. | Waiting period is 3 years which is reduced to 2 years if the policy has been continued for 4 years. | Waiting period is 2 years under all the variants. |
| SA AVAILABLE FOR NEWBORN | New born is covered for full SA till renewal. | New born is covered for 10% of mother’s SA for up to 5 months. | New born is covered upto full SA till renewal. |
With these plans available in the market, providing for maternity expenses becomes really easy. The Platinum plan of Max Bupa even goes further by providing for vaccination expenses up to 12 years and also for nutrition and diet consultation expenses which is truly unique.
So before you start planning for a family it will be prudent if you keep in mind the expenses it would entail and to provide for those expenses. After all, the joy of childbirth can be fully appreciated if you ditch the expenses part aside, isn’t it?
The author is the CEO of MyInsuranceClub.com, an online insurance price & features comparison portal.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
