Individual vs family floater health insurance plan- all you need to know
The health insurance is a must for every individual in this age as the diseases are much deadly than ever before, and treatment cost has also gone much higher. The health insurance has mainly two options which are individual plans and family floater. As the name shows in the individual plan, only one person is covered who is a policyholder. In the family floater, all the family members are included.
The individual plan:
In an individual plan, the premium amount is decided from the sum assured and age of the individual policyholder. Hence if the policyholder is young, he may have to pay a low premium. The sum assured offered to the individual is restricted to be used by him only in case of any medical treatment. However, in this plan, only one person is covered.
The family floater plan:
In this plan, a particular sum assured is given to the whole family or members covered. Usually, in this plan, parents and kids are covered. However, there are also plans where the grandparents, parents-in-law and brother or sister are also covered. It depends on the service provider and plan. In this policy, the whole family is provided with a particular sum assured. In case the same is used by one member, other members may not have any benefit of it. In a case where one member has got half of the sum assured any other member can get rest of the sum assured. Hence in this plan the sum assured may be used by any member of the family, the insurer is responsible for offering a definite amount of sum assured only.
Which plan is better?
It is challenging to decide which plan is better as every family has different needs. In case a family where the senior members are there, it is better to go for the individual plan as the cost of the premium is decided as per the age and factors related to the senior-most member. In case the senior member crosses the maximum age of the insurance plan, the renewability of the insurance plan also gets lapsed. In case of a young family, it is better to go for the floater policy as they do not have much of the claims every year and the age of senior member also is not much which can make it lapse the renewability.
The family with senior members may also go for a combination of floater and individual plan where a few members can be covered under the floater policy who are comparatively of young age. In contrast, others can go for an individual policy where the benefit of an individual plan can be availed.
Premium and other factors: In case of a floater policy, the premium may be low or high as well. It depends on the age of the senior-most member of the family. If the senior member is of upper age, the premium may be a huge one in floater policy. In contrast, in the case of an individual policy, it depends on the age of the concerned policyholder only. If the policyholder is of young age and makes no claim, he may get the policy at a low cost and also avail the benefit of no claim bonus.
Coverage is another factor that affects the premium amount. In the case of the floater policy, the coverage may be availed to all the members. Even if there is one claim made and sum assured is left, another member can still have the benefit of claim to the extent of available sum assured which is not the case with the individual policy.