Individual v/s Family Floater Health Insurance

Remember when I bought my first Mediclaim Policy, there was nothing called a Family Floater and Individual Policy were the only once available . In recent years we see this new innovation hitting the market

The Individual Policy are no brainers , where by based on your age you buy a policy , the premium is decided by your age and as per terms of the insurance company there could be some exclusions . So the bottom line for these policy is "YOU" or the person who is insured and nothing else mattered. These policy also provided you with no claim bonuses , which gets carried forward every year, when you renew the policy.

Family Floaters are different , here the entire family is covered so the insured amount is higher . Any member of the Family can use the entire insured amount.The thought behind such a policy was that all members of family may not fall ill simultaneously and since this is somewhat like a group policy it is cheaper too. These policy also provided you with no claim bonuses , which gets carried forward every year, when you renew the policy

These are the broad outlines.Family Floaters have been very popular and I'm sure all the General Insurance companies are aggressively promoting it . But are the below mentioned fact ever clearly stated to the buyers , is something to be considered

these are from http://www.apnainsurance.com/health-insurance-india/indiviual-floater.html

"There are other disadvantages to a family floater policy as well. The policy will be renewed only till the senior most member reaches the maximum age of renew ability allowed by that company. As it stands today, at that stage, the other family members will need to take a fresh policy without having the benefit of their claim history and pre-existing disease coverage that comes from continuous renewal of the policy.

The same thing applies to children who reach the maximum age (normally 25 years in most cases) after which they will need to buy a separate policy for themselves without the benefit of the earlier continuous coverage that they have got under the family floater policy.

Most policies also make no specific provision for continuing cover of the surviving members in case of the unfortunate death of the senior most member"


So remember to get these clarified , in writing , before you opt for a Family Floater or keep life simple and buy individual cover for all members of the family