When your medical insurance cover falls short of the requirement, a super top-up plan can be your saviour. This comes handy when you don’t wish to raise your premium burden by increasing the base sum assured.
Let us suppose, Mr Ajay has a medical insurance policy for ₹5 lakh and he wants to protect himself from an unexpected medical expense in the next financial year, for which he is looking for an insurance cover of ₹10 lakh.
When he explored the option of taking a bigger cover, he realised that his premium liability could surge drastically. There was another alternative i.e., to take a super top-up plan where his base cover stays at ₹5 lakh, but in case of emergency – he can claim up to ₹10 lakh.
Abhishek Mishra, CEO & principal officer, Bonanza Insurance, says super top-up plans are quite popular these days. “These plans are quite effective in getting a bigger cover without having to pay a high premium. For instance, if you have ₹10 lakh cover, and the super top up is for ₹50 lakh then each time you exhaust your ₹10 lakh limit, your super top up comes handy.”
Multiple claims
Super top up plan is good in case of multiple claims by policy holder. Let’s suppose a policy holder has ₹10 lakh policy, and he has already claimed ₹9 lakh during the year and he wants to make another claim of ₹3 lakh then without a super top up, he will be entitled to only ₹1 lakh whereas with this top up (of, say, ₹5 lakh), he can get the entire ₹3 lakh, i.e., a total of ₹12 lakh in that year.
Mr Mishra further says, “In case you want to take a policy with a bigger sum assured instead of a super top up, the premium could be unaffordable. So, the most affordable thing to do is to take a smaller sum assured and a super top up over it. This way you can get a large coverage at the least cost possible.”
Some experts opine that one of the reasons of taking a super top up cover is that policy holder is satisfied with insurer.
“If you have a good insurance and are looking to enhance the sum assured then buy a top-up. You can keep the deductible equal to the sum assured of the insurance that you already have. However, if you are unhappy with your current health insurance then simply port to an insurance that you are comfortable with,” says Kapil Mehta, Co-Founder and CEO, Secure Now Insurance Broker.
Unsatisfied with insurer?
There is another viewpoint that policy holders can port to another insurer or choose another plan if they are not satisfied with their current policy.
“If the features and benefits of a medical insurance plan are inadequate, then the policyholder should opt for a new plan by porting to another insurer. On the other hand, top-up is an option to use when the policyholder is satisfied by his policy, and only wants to enhance the sum assured and save premium in the process,” says Naval Goel, Founder and CEO of PolicyX.com says.
Having said this, one might wonder as to why would anyone take a policy with a large sum assured when this can be compensated for by a super top up plan. In other words, what should be the ideal base sum assured when a super top up can compensate for any shortage.
Vishwanathan Odatt, managing director of AIMS Insurance Broking responds to this when he says: “The basic policy determines the room rent which is calculated at the rate of one percent of sum assured. For instance, a policy is for ₹5 lakh, then the approved room rent of hospital would be its one percent i.e., ₹5,000.”