Buying a health insurance plan is one of the most important purchases you will ever make. Adding to that, the notion of buying the right thing at the right time also plays a factor in health insurance. Your friends and family must have repeatedly given you that advice. However, do you know what the advice itself means? More importantly, do you know what the right time to buy medical insurance is?
When you hear that you need to buy health insurance at the right time, the first though that might come to your head would be of making the purchase when there is a good deal available. Or you might think about what your income is while considering buying health insurance. While these are important point that should be accounted for in the purchase, the thing you need to be focused most on is the age you buy medical insurance online at.
How does age affect buying medical insurance?
Aging is a natural and inseparable part of life. As you grow in age, you gain a lot of experience of good and bad things. It means that you grow in life and have new experiences. However, one thing that comes with a higher age is also higher expenses. To support these expenses, you would need to earn more money and to invest in the right places. Your lifestyle decides the type of expenses you would have in the future. Since your lifestyle has a direct effect on both your age and health insurance. It is not a surprise that the age you decide to buy health insurance is a major influence on the purchase. The later you buy health insurance in your life, the more costly it will be for you.
Advantages of buying health insurance early
Legally, Indians can buy a health insurance as soon as they turn 18 years of age. Hence, the only questions remain is what kind of coverage that needs to be purchased and whether it is affordable? For anyone below the age of 18, their coverage would have to be included into a policy bought by another adult. However, if at the age of 18, you can afford a health insurance policy, you should definitely go for it. Here are a few advantages you will enjoy in doing so:
- Cheaper coverage
Whenever you buy a health insurance policy, the insurance company will collect personal and medical details from you. This information is taken to evaluate you and create the ideal health coverage for you. Depending on this evaluation, the insurance provider will decide your premium. The factors that it considers include the sum insured amount you select, pre-existing medical conditions, add-on covers opted, deductibles, and co-payment clause. However, the most important factor is your current medical condition. At a young age, you are likely to have no major illnesses. Hence, there is a less risk for the insurance provider. For this reason, the coverage you buy will be cheaper than what it would be even 5 years later.
Easier waiting period
Health insurance policies take some time to become active after you buy the plan. This is known as a waiting period. Usually, it takes 30 days for the policy to actively cover you. Before these 30 days, you cannot make any claims. This condition can be highly unfavourable for someone that has active medical needs or suffers from a high-risk illness. This is often the case for people at a higher age. In this situation, you end up having a medical emergency during the waiting period, you would have to cover the treatment cost. Buying at a young age means that you can clear the waiting period without any issues.
No medical tests
Depending on the age you buy the insurance policy, you would have to go through all the list of medical tests. These tests are done to get an accurate idea of how healthy you are. This, in turn, decides your eligibility and premium for the health insurance. However, if you buy a policy at a young age, insurance companies assume that you are in good health. Hence, there is no need for medical tests for the purchase. This saves you the hassle of going through the tests and lowers the cost of buying the policy.
