Rider is important and an integral part of an insurance plan. It provides an additional coverage to your existing policy at affordable premiums. It even protects you against sudden medical emergencies that may involve higher medical expenditure.
Often people purchase standard medical policies keeping in mind that one such policy would cover all the medical expenditures but may later face sudden financial crisis when they do not get an optimum coverage. A rider is, therefore, an ultimate solution in this case. If you have a rider attached to your basic policy, you will never fall short of the coverage as you will always have an additional sum insured in case of sudden eventualities covered by the riders.
Here's a list of some important health insurance riders that provide good benefits when added with your basic medical insurance policy:
1. Maternity Cover: It is an essential cover that you must have if you are planning to have a baby in future. As the name depicts, the rider covers for all the medical expenses incurred during your childbirth procedure. You can get this cover for two years or more depending on your future plans. In addition to this, it also gives you the privilege to cover your new-born babies from birth till the end of the policy tenure. By adding this rider, your policy premiums will go up by around 15-20%.
2. Critical illness cover: Anyone suffering from critical illnesses like cancer, massive heart stroke, brain tumor etc, should include this add-on cover with their medical policy so as to deal with the long drawn medical expenses with ease. A critical illness cover provides a lump sum amount immediately, regardless of how much you have paid at the time of treatment. Critical illness cover compensates for 10-15 ailments on an average and can go up to 38 ailments in a comprehensive package.
3. Personal accident cover: Personal accident cover provides reimbursements for all kind of consequences in an accident including permanent/partial disablement (loss or fracture in limbs, arms, and legs, etc.) and accidental death.
4. Top up or super top up cover: These riders provide an additional health insurance cover, over and above your existing medical insurance policy. They can be used to increase the sum insured of your basic plan. The only difference between a top up cover and a super top up cover is that a top-up cover reimburses expenses exceeding your medical policy just for one hospitalization while super top up cover reimburse expense for the entire year.
5. Hospital cash cover: Hospital cash reimburses the daily cash that you may need for taking care of medical expenses during the stay in the hospital. Typically, you can claim compensations anywhere between 500 and 3,000, depending on the kind of your stay. You can even claim a higher payout if you are admitted to ICU. You will be eligible for the payout only if you are hospitalized for a minimum of 24 hours.
There are many general insurance companies that provide add-on covers on the medical policy for your convenience and benefits. You can purchase the riders at the time of policy issuance to avoid getting into crisis. But you will of course have to pay additional premiums for availing the benefits associated with such policies.
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