The majority of Indian employers provide their employees with Group medical insurance policies as an additional benefit. Even though these policies provide enough assistance to employees and their families, only group plans can cover your parents’ aging parents in the event of a health emergency.
Vivek Chaturvedi, Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Direct Sales at Digit Insurance, discussed the reasons why parents may not be adequately covered by group policies in an email exchange with FE PF Desk.
Excerpts: What makes you think that the GMC only covers parents?
Employees and their dependents, including spouse, children, and, in some cases, parents, are covered by a group medical coverage (GMC). The employee has the option of including or not including their parents on the cover.
How technology has changed the way insurance companies process claims in recent years? It’s common knowledge that seniors pay more for medical care, so they need more insurance. Taking advantage of the GMC plan that your employer offers can provide additional financial protection for your parents. However, relying solely on a GMC policy is never sufficient. In addition to your employer’s group policy, you should buy retail health insurance.
The GMC comes with a fixed amount of coverage, which may be lower than what you would get from retail health insurance. Also, the GMC coverage would end if you changed jobs or took a sabbatical, leaving you and your parents without a safety net. While the facts really confirm that covering your folks under GMC may not need any wellbeing check-ups, the actual superior can be very high assuming you wish to add them to the strategy.
Further, since the old are more inclined to sicknesses, different cases inside the approach year could leave the other relatives with little aggregate protected. Therefore, it is advisable to purchase a separate policy for your parents in addition to the one offered by your employer.
How advantageous is it to include parents in GMC?
You and your dependents are not required to have a pre-medical checkup if you have Unger group medical coverage. As a result, you and your family members are covered immediately without having to deal with any hassle or paperwork.
The majority of GMC policies, in contrast to retail health insurance, have no waiting period and have provided immediate coverage to you and your dependents since the policy’s inception.
Your parents can get treatment and file a claim under the GMC cover if they have preexisting health conditions like asthma, diabetes, or other illnesses that don’t need serious medical attention. The GMC cover covers treatments for illnesses from the start.
What are the drawbacks of only offering GMC to parents?
Although GMC makes it simple to cover you and your family, the level of coverage depends on the preferences of your employer. The overall level of medical coverage may be affected if your employer reduces coverage benefits, ends the policy, or eliminates the option to include your parents. This makes GMC less solid with regards to covering your and your parent’s medical coverage needs.
Insurance for health:
Benefit from wellness incentives to promote a healthy lifestyle. If you decide to change jobs or take a sabbatical, your employer’s GMC plan will end when you leave the company. This basically means that you and your family won’t have access to health insurance during the transition.
It is essential to keep in mind that the majority of businesses only cover an employee’s spouse and children. Inclusion for guardians, in any case, could come at an additional expense. Rather than covering your parents under a group policy, it would be better to put the same premium into a retail plan.
Having said that, the best thing you can do is include them in the GMC plan if purchasing a retail policy is not an option due to age or health issues.
