Life is highly unpredictable. While you hope for the best for yourself as well as your family members, there is no one denying the fact that mishaps like road accidents can occur anytime. While you might have a health insurance policy for family to get protection against medical expenses in case of an illness or disease, what about coverage for accident injuries? Does your policy cover that as well?
When purchasing a medical policy, it is essential to understand the coverage offered by the policy thoroughly. If you are planning to buy a policy anytime soon, here are some important things to know about getting coverage for accident injuries-
Difference between health insurance and accident cover
While most health policy plans now cover a host of medical conditions, only a select few offer accident cover. Most insurance providers have a separate insurance product to offer accident cover generally known as personal accident insurance. Such policies cover you against permanent total disability and accidental death due to an accident.
Many of these plans also come with optional covers like accidental hospitalisation expenses, daily hospital allowance and more. In short, it is wrong to believe that your health insurance policy will cover you for accident injuries. Personal accident insurance is a different type of insurance product which you need to purchase separately.
Accident cover as an add-on cover
Many insurance providers also offer add-on accident cover along with some of the best health insurance policies. If you are not looking to buy a separate insurance policy for accident coverage, you can consider purchasing this add-on cover along with your health insurance policy.
Apart from the accident cover, many of the policies come with different types of add-on covers like a top-up cover, hospital cash cover, critical illness cover and more.
Benefits of buying personal accident insurance policy
Here are some of the top benefits of investing in a personal insurance policy-
1. Coverage against permanent disability and accidental death
Some severe accidents could also lead to permanent disability. Many such accidents also result in deaths. If the victim of one such accident was the sole breadwinner of the family, the accident could put immense financial stress on the family.
Personal accident insurance covers you against permanent disability and death caused due to an accident to ensure that your family receives the much-needed financial support.
2. Optional cover for hospitalisation expenses
Many insurance providers also offer optional cover for hospitalisation expenses. If you have been admitted to a hospital after an accident, this cover will ensure that the insurance provider pays the hospitalisation expenses too.
Similarly, you can get other optional covers like daily hospital allowance to manage your hospitalisation expenses easily.
3. Coverage against terrorism
Many of the best family health insurance policies or individual insurance do not offer coverage against terrorism or acts of terrorism. If you are a victim of such activities, standard policies will not cover your hospital expenses.
However, some personal accident insurance plans cover such acts of terrorism as well.
Selecting the right personal accident insurance
While you now know the basics of personal accident insurance, knowing which is the best insurance policy can still be confusing. To make the right decision, try to first understand more about personal accident insurance and factors like coverage amount, network hospital, policy duration and policy premium.
Once you understand these factors, it should not be difficult for you to select a policy that best suits your accident insurance needs.