Nowadays, cancer treatment, organ transplant and other critical treatments can set you back Rs 10-15 lakh in just a few days. For a lot of families, that’s more than a year’s savings, all gone before they even get the discharge summary.
With medical costs continuing to rise, many policyholders are increasingly chasing hefty health insurance covers worth Rs 50 lakh or even Rs 1 crore. However, while the premium for such covers appears steep, super top-up plans appear to be an affordable way to enhance coverage. But the question is, are super top-up plans really a cost-effective solution, or are they just a partial safety net that comes with its own risks, disguised as complete protection?
Keep reading to find out why super top-up plans have lower premiums, their limitations, how to choose between different options and more
What is a super top-up health insurance plan?
A super top-up health insurance plan isn’t your typical basic health plan; instead, it acts as an extra layer, an add-on, that boosts your overall health coverage beyond what you already have with a base policy or corporate health insurance. It steps in only after the sum insured of your personal or employer-provided health insurance policy is used up to the deductible threshold of your super top-up plan.
The deductible refers to the amount you need to pay out of pocket each policy year, when you seek treatment for a medical condition that is covered in the policy. After you cover that initial amount, the super top-up policy takes care of costs that go beyond it.
“The size of the deductible is based on your existing base insurance policy. For example, if you have a Rs 10 lakh base policy and buy a Rs 90 lakh super top-up with a Rs 10 lakh deductible, the super top-up pays only when the total amount you incur in a policy year exceeds Rs10 lakh,” says Sarita Joshi, Head of Health and Life Insurance at Probus.
An important point to note is that a super top-up plan works on cumulative medical expenses incurred during a policy year. This means that once the total hospitalisation costs across one or multiple treatments exceed the deductible, the super top-up policy will start covering the expenses that go beyond that level.
If you do not have any insurance policy, you can still get the super top-up insurance plan. You will always have the option to pay a certain deductible from your own pocket, and then claim the remaining amount. This becomes handy when you have a lower deductible like Rs 1 lakh or Rs 2 lakh, as any amount above this will be covered by the super top-up plans. However, in case of a higher deductible like Rs 10 lakh, the possibility of using a super top-up plan will be very low.
