Choosing the Best Health Insurance
But the problem is how to choose the Best Health Insurance. How we, as ordinary people, can determine and choose good health insurance.
With that in mind, a review was carried out on offers from four leading insurance companies, namely Allianz health insurance, AXA health insurance, Manulife health insurance and Cigna health insurance, and Prudential health insurance.
The five of them are quite well-known insurance companies and have the most extensive hospital cooperation network.
We each see and compare the benefits and premiums with each other.
Health insurance is insurance that provides reimbursement of health costs if the policyholder is hospitalized due to illness or accident. The amount of reimbursement is according to the number of bills from the hospital with certain limits based on the insurance plan taken.
Insurance is an important part of managing family finances.
Health insurance is different from critical illness insurance. Critical illness insurance provides cash compensation if you suffer from certain critical illnesses. Cash compensation is given once on a lump-sum basis.
Before looking at each offer, it's a good idea first to discuss what the ideal criteria are. After that, we can determine which health insurance is good.
Best Health Insurance
According to various literature and opinions of financial planners, things that should be considered in determining good health insurance are:
1. Cashless
With cashless, claim reimbursement becomes easier. When you enter the hospital, you don't have to pay but settle the bill by swiping the insurance card—no need to pay upfront, which then still has to be reimbursed to insurance (reimbursement).
However, this cashless requires that the hospital where you are treated has collaborated with the insurance because the hospital must have and install a machine to swipe the insurance card. If you don't cooperate, even though insurance has a cashless claim system, you are forced to pay upfront still and then settle with reimbursement.
2. Extensive Hospital Network
Cashless claims cannot be made at hospitals that do not have a partnership with insurance. Therefore, choose insurance that has a network of cooperation with many hospitals. Make sure your subscribed hospital (if any) cooperates with the health insurance you will choose.
3. Appropriate Ceiling and Premium
Ideally, the health insurance ceiling is chosen as desired. If the scheme you take is lower, when you are hospitalized, you will have to incur additional costs to cover the shortfall that is not covered by insurance
Of course, the ceiling height is directly related to the amount of the premium—the more expensive the hospital room, the more expensive the premium too. Adjust the premium with the ability, do not even burden your finances.
Must be ready to trade-off between premium and ceiling. Although it is often not easy, because of health issues, such as choosing a hospital room, people are more emotional and tend to want to be comfortable and good, which implies expensive room prices.
4. Pure Health Insurance
Choose stand-alone health insurance, not a unit-linked life insurance rider.
Why? Expensive.
In unit-linked, premiums will be divided for life insurance, investment, and new health insurance. The portion for health becomes small, so you have to pay more to get a higher ceiling.
Not to mention a number of unit-linked cost discounts that are not small in number, which further reduces health premiums. In pure insurance, the premium is intended solely for health care coverage, and the cost discount is also not as large as the cost so that the premium becomes cheaper or the coverage value becomes lower higher.
If you want proof, compare the value of coverage and the amount of premium between pure health insurance.
5. Prioritize Hospitalization
Health costs include outpatient and inpatient care. We recommend that you focus on the insurance that covers the cost of hospitalization because this treatment costs the most. If you have more money, you can take additional outpatient insurance.
6. No Limit per Treatment
There is a limit or ceiling that limits the maximum number of claims for health costs. Generally, insurance applies two types of limits, the first is the combined limit of all treatments, and the second is the limit per treatment.
For example, the first limit limits all treatment costs to IDR 250 million a year, while the second limit limits the cost of surgical treatment to IDR 10 million a year, consulting fees to IDR 10 million a year, and so on. Some use both limits simultaneously. We recommend that you choose insurance that applies the first limit, or in other words, does not limit the cost per treatment.
This means that policyholders are flexible for various treatments as long as the total limit is still there. Insurance that limits the first and second limits is, of course, the least ideal.
7. No Auto Debit
Although it seems easy and usually premiums are paid monthly (so it looks lighter), please be careful when making payments with an auto-debit credit card (want to know how to manage a credit card, see here).
If you are forced to use this method because insurance does not provide other payment alternatives, make sure you know when payments start and what the process is if you want to stop.
8. Avoid Insurance by Phone
Health insurance offers through telemarketing began to emerge, usually in cooperation with credit card issuers.
Regarding products that are quite complex, such as this insurance, you should think about it, analyze it, and if you have time to do research before making a decision. Therefore, I do not recommend taking a decision immediately when bidding by telemarketing.
I have personally experienced the speed and simplicity of the bidding process so that a lot of detailed information could not be conveyed due to time constraints. If you are really interested and need time to think about it, you can ask for the contact number of the insurance company, which you can contact when you are ready.
9. Waiting Period for Disease
Health insurance requires a waiting period, and some diseases cannot be claimed for a certain period of time from the insurance expiration date.
For example, Cigna determined that the following diseases could only be claimed 12 months later, namely asthma; TB (Tuberculosis); kidney, urinary tract, and bladder stones; high blood pressure (hypertension), heart and blood vessels; Diabetes (Diabetes Mellitus); Vertigo; and others. Ask the insurance company what the waiting period is and how long.
10. Family Health Insurance
Generally, people take out health insurance, not only for themselves but also for their families. Therefore it is necessary to choose a good and cheap family health insurance by paying attention to:
- the best health insurance for families;
- family premiums are cheaper;
- cashless facilities for families;
- Good health insurance for children because the expenses for the treatment of children are usually the largest.
This is information about choosing the best health insurance by ITI190-Insurance Top Info 190.