3 sub-limits you should be wary of when buying health insurance.

Having a health insurance plan ensures you do not have to cover medical expenses on your own. It will take away the financial pain of an illness, injury, or medical procedure and ensure you can recover without worrying about the cost. And with the increase in medical inflation, it is extremely important for each and every one of us to have a good health insurance policy.

However, when buying a plan, there are several terms & features you need to compare in order to get the best coverage possible. You need to look into things like sum insured, waiting period, pre- and post-hospitalization coverage, etc. However, one often overlooked component that is as important as all these factors is the sub-limits of the plan.

Keeping this in mind, the following article will discuss what sub-limits are and 3 major sub-limits you should watch out for when evaluating the various plans available in the market.

So, what is a sub-limit?

Think of sub-limits as a cap on the compensation amount for certain illnesses, treatments, and heads of expenses. Any costs that exceed this cap will not be covered by the insurance provider and will need to be borne by the policyholder. As such, there are 3 important sub-limits you need to keep in mind when looking for the right health insurance policy, they are:

Room rent: In case of hospitalization, the patient needs to pay the per day bed charges; these charges are known as room rent. Room rent expenses depend on the kind of bed selected. A bed in a shared ward is the most affordable, while a bed in a private room can be quite expensive. In case of extended hospitalization, room rent can add up to a large expense.

That’s why it is important to look into the sub-limits on room rent. Some plans will cap room rent compensation at 1% of the sum insured. However, the better health insurance plans will allow you to set the room rent capping as per your requirement. You can opt to have no room rent capping at all, or you could a lower cap to enjoy lower premiums.

Ambulance charges: Another common sub-limit is the capping of ambulance charges. Again, some plan will cap the ambulance charges at a certain percentage of the sum insured. Other plans will set the sub-limit as high as Rs. 30,000 for emergency ambulance charges & the cost of repatriation of human remains.

Sub-limits on specific conditions & treatments: Some health insurance plans also have sub-limits on a few pre-planned procedures like cataract operations, reconstruction of knee ligaments, plastic surgery, and so on. However, the extent of the capping will vary from one insurance provider to the next. Therefore, you must go over this aspect with your insurance provider before buying a plan.

Sub-limits play a pivotal role in deciding the compensation you receive in case of a claim. So remember to keep this aspect in mind when comparing health insurance policies. We hope this article has been helpful, good luck, and take care!