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Rajesh
Saxena, 42, sat late in the office, huddled over his desk. He was
in a hurry to finish the latest assignment before his vacation.
Wife Mahima and daughter Shruti had been waiting for months for
this trip, as he had finally managed to squeeze some time out from
his busy schedule. But then, something happened. Just as he was
shutting his filing cabinet, reaching for his suitcase with the
other hand, he felt a sharp pang streak across his chest. Before
he knew it, everything started blurring right before his eyes. Years
of late nights, tense deadlines, junk food and indulgent partying
had caught up with him. His cardiac muscles had decided to call
it quits.
Saxena considers himself
lucky, now that he has the bright real faces of his family around
him, by his bedside. He still has his pulse. The blur is gone. But
the bill for the bypass operation and post-operative care has ripped
his finances apart. His bank balance is nil, and his wife is selling
the car to clear his debt. You
can't blame the money managers of course, what with the stockmarkets
uncomfortably ensconced at 2,900 levels for most of October and
the first half of November.
Most Basic Need
It happens to the most thoughtful of us. A functional body is something
we take for granted for most of our lives. Caught up in the exigencies
of our daily rigmarole, we keep putting the health insurance agent
off-till we come to grief, ruing the days past.
''You never know what can happen to whom anytime, irrespective of
the age,'' says Sandhya Rajan, a 60-year-old housewife, whose family's
health is insured for the past 10 years. ''The very fact that we
have a cover gives us a great sense of security,'' says she.
Nothing can assuage the mental drain a family suffers from when
a loved one falls critically sick. With health insurance, at least
you're free of the financial headache. Bills already run into lakhs,
and if the Indian healthcare sector starts resembling America's,
costs would rise further. It makes sense for any society to pool
risks and share costs. Which is what insurance does. Now, at last,
there's choice too.
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Medical cover in India is really a sickness
cover and not strictly a medical cover
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Mediclaim
The most common medical insurance product in the market is Mediclaim,
marketed by the four subsidiaries of General Insurance Corporation
of India-New India Assurance, United India Assurance, Oriental Insurance,
and National Insurance. Any Indian aged five-80 can take a Mediclaim
policy. Children aged three months to five years can also be covered
under a parent's policy.
Mediclaim provides for reimbursement of expenses, within the coverage
limit (you opt for anything from Rs 15,000 to Rs 5 lakh as the sum
assured) incurred on account of hospitalisation in India for treatment
of any illness/disease/accidental injury (not specified in exclusions)
suffered during the policy period. Typically, a Rs 1 lakh cover
for a 30-year old healthy male should cost just Rs 1,400 odd for
a year. As you age, the premium rises.
There are family packages as well, and group policies for corporates.
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