Everyone needs to invest in a good health insurance plan to safeguard themselves and their family against unforeseen events. But, the question is, which kind of insurance plan to choose? Should one go for an individual cover or take out a family floater health insurance policy? There are many factors that affect this decision and one of them is age. This article will talk about why it is better to go for an individual health insurance plan if you have an older family.
Before 45
Typically, younger families do better with a family floater plan. A younger family is one where the age of the eldest member is not above 45 years. The reason for this is that younger people are at lesser risk of hospitalization and, therefore, a family floater plan can give them a better coverage with a larger sum insured at a great premium.
After 45
In case if your family has a member above age 45 years then it is advised that you should opt for individual health insurance. To be precise if a member of your family is above 45 years of age, you should buy an individual policy for them and keeping the other members under one floater plan. As more people in your family, such as your spouse, reach that age, you can take individual policies for them, at the time of renewal.
Individual Plans Are Better For Older Families
To understand why an individual plan is better if the members of your family are older, let us take the help of an example.
Suppose, we have a family of four; mom, dad and two kids. Let us assume that the dad is 47 years of age and the mom is 42. If this family decides to take a floater plan, then the premium for that plan would be linked to the age of the oldest member of the family; in this case the dad. Even though there are no apparent health issues, the age factor alone will cause the premium to shoot up. In a family floater plan if the sum insured is Rs 5 lakh the premium would be somewhere around Rs 20,000.
However, if the family decides to go for individual plans for all members, then the premium for each plan would be linked to that family member. So, if the individual plans are for Rs 3 lakh each, then the premiums would be something like Rs 6000 (dad), Rs 3750 (mom) and around Rs 3250 each for the two kids. The total premium, in this case, is much lower at Rs 16,250.
Insuring Your Parents
Add to this the possibility of insuring your parents too. They would be somewhere around the age of 65 to 70. You can only imagine what the premium would be like in this case since it would be linked to the individual whose age is almost 70. Why would you pay such a high premium when you know that taking an individual plan is cheaper?
To conclude, it is safe to say that individual health insurance plans work out best for older families!