Typically, people begin their careers in their 30s, and along with it, they also start planning to achieve their financial goals, including retirement. Many people purchase their first health insurance policy at the same time. At a young age, when you are healthy, it may not make much difference which health policy you buy. However, as you get older and approach retirement, your dependency on health insurance may increase. It can make a huge difference which policy you have, what it covers, how much coverage it offers, and what its features are when you need to make a claim. To buy a health policy in your 30s that aligns with your retirement needs, here are some important considerations to keep in mind.
Choose A Health Policy That Also Offers Crucial Riders
When you buy a health policy with retirement in your mind, prefer a product that has a wide range of riders available with it. For example, you may look for riders such as critical illness cover, inflation protection, a zero deduction on consumables, etc.
Avoid Bancassurance Health Policy
People starting their career in their 30s may also open a salary bank account, and they may get an offer to buy bancassurance health cover at a very low premium compared to a regular health policy. Avoid it and focus on buying a regular health policy. Terms and conditions on bancassurance health plans vary from the regular health policies, and they may increase the premium at a later stage or discontinue the policy. Bancassurance policies cannot be ported to a regular health policy, so you may lose all the continuation benefits if you fail to renew your existing health policy or fail to port it. So, avoid a bancassurance health policy for your retirement.
Get A Separate Health Policy From Your Company’s Group Health Policy
Your employer may offer you a group health policy, which may give you adequate coverage only till you continue your association with the company. So, to stay adequately covered even after leaving the job, you should take a regular health policy separate from your company’s health policy.
Beware Of Coverage For Your Hereditary Health Issue
When buying a health policy, consider your hereditary health issues and accordingly choose the product that can give you adequate cover for them. Avoid policies that have such ailments in their exclusion list, which you have a high chance of getting in your old age due to heredity.
Always make sure that you increase your health insurance coverage from time to time to keep pace with medical inflation. Prefer policies that allow lifelong renewability. After buying your first policy, you may port your policies in the future to stay better aligned with your retirement needs. A health policy with retirement in mind at an early stage will eliminate the risk of policy rejection in the future if you unfortunately get any critical ailment.
The author is an independent financial journalist
