Chennai: The year 2020 was like none other. It was a year that not only saw a small virus change the world that we live in, but also changed our perceptions about the importance and need for health insurance.
As on March 2021, almost 120 million people across the world had been infected with the deadly coronavirus which killed over 2.6 million of them.
Only in India, over 11 million infections were reported by mid-March, second only to the US.
What is shocking then is that less than four per cent of Covid-19 patients in India had health insurance coverage.
And a majority of those who did have a health cover, found their coverage to be inadequate. When the Coronavirus was at its peak, the cost of a 15-day-hospitalisation at a super-specialty hospital in the national capital could have run up to Rs 10 lakh per person.
And with Covid-19 being a highly infectious virus, there have been thousands of cases where whole families contracted the virus and thus needed expensive medical care, taking the collective expenses to tens of lakhs for the whole family.
“To address these concerns, there are Rs 1 crore sum insured health insurance plans available in the market that provides comprehensive coverage to the customers. While you may wonder this would cost a bomb, but that is not the case. These policies are designed as a combination of a base plan coupled with a super top-up, which substantially brings down the premium for such policies. Earlier, the share of people buying health insurance plans with Rs 20 lakh–Rs 1 crore sum insured was less than 5 per cent, however, the share has now increased to 50 per cent over the last 12 months,” says Amit Chhabra, head- health insurance, Policybazaar.