How Unlimited Automatic Recharge in Mediclaim Is Helpful

A Mediclaim health policy is a type of medical insurance that covers you against sudden healthcare expenses. Buying mediclaim health insurance ensures that you receive a cashless treatment facility at network hospitals or get reimbursed against your medical bills. A mediclaim policy generally covers for pre hospitalisation, in hospitalisation and post hospitalisation costs along with paramedical/ ambulance services though it is advised that you carefully read the caveats, terms and conditions of the policy documents before opting for one. The mediclaim insurance is considered a beneficial financial and healthcare investment of your health savings account.  

What Is The Automatic Recharge Facility?

Automatic recharge facility in mediclaim is a feature that automatically provides a top-up to the exhausted sum insured amount whenever there is a claim or multiple claims filed in an annual year. It acts as a great financial investment in the event of an unexpected medical emergency that exhausts your sum insured without paying any additional cost.

Few health insurance plans have this automatic recharge feature as an inbuilt cover while some offer it as an optional coverage. 

Points to Keep in Mind in Unlimited Automatic Recharge

Unlimited automatic recharge in Mediclaim is a good policy, but as with all policies, there are some factors to be known before the purchase of the policy:

• Automatic recharge becomes applicable only when the   amount and No Claim Bonus feature gets exhausted in an annual year
• An Automatic recharge is available as an applicable feature for future claims only
• Automatic recharge cannot be used for any coverage on a medical claim filed and processed previously in that year
• Automatic recharge cannot exceed the total sum insured of a policy in a year
• Automatic recharge is not applicable if you possess only a single claim in a year
• If automatic recharge amount is not completely utilised in a mediclaim, then the left over amount can be used in the policy year till it gets exhausted
• However, a non utilised automatic recharge amount cannot be carried forward to the next policy year

Also Read: Top Health Insurance Plans With Unlimited Recharge

Benefits of the Unlimited Automatic Recharge in Mediclaim Policy

The benefits of choosing a policy with unlimited automatic recharge are:

• The plan would take care of the hospitalization expenses
• According to the particular of the plan, family members of the policyholder would also be able to utilize this feature.
• The patient would not have to worry about the number of times he or his family members might be hospitalized in a monetary aspect as the policy has an automatic recharge policy which is perfect for situations like these, where there might be multiple hospitalizations in the same year.

Comparison with Other Features 

While an automatic recharge is very much similar to another health insurance feature known as automatic restore, there is a major difference in both i.e, for a given health policy, if the basic sum insured and the accrued bonus (if any) get exhausted during the treatment undergone then the basic sum insured will be restored by the provider. This insured sum amount can be utilised by the individual for medical treatments and services besides the one for which he received the claim; also the insured sum can be used by other members who are being covered under family floater policy.

Important Points to observe are:

• Restoration benefits under a health insurance plan can be availed only once in a year    
• Amount restored cannot be carried forward to next policy year and it needs to be utilised in the given year itself

Impact On Health Insurance Premium

Following are some key ways of deducing the impact of automatic recharge on health insurance premium:

• Best Feasible For Family Floater Plan: A family floater health plan ensures medical coverage for the entire family unit in the insured premium amount as compared to an individual health insurance plan which covers for just one person on a given sum insured premium. Thus, automatic recharge for a family floater health care policy will benefit all members in the family who require medical treatment in a policy year
• Financial Buffer: With the ever rising inflation and economic instability, even the base premium insured amount is sometimes not enough to provide you sufficient medical cover for more than a claim filed in a policy year but the automatic recharge feature provides great financial support without adding on to the extra cost
• Cost Efficiency: Buying a health insurance plan with the automatic recharge facility is much more cost efficient as compared to a single high premium health policy and the high medical coverage can be enjoyed by an insured person without paying additional premiums 

You May Also Like to Read: Recharge Benefits in Health Insurance

Conclusion

Unlimited Automatic recharge in Mediclaim is extremely useful as it ensures that the policyholder or the patient does not have to worry about taking out loans to pay the hospital expenses or be stressed about repaying the loans, instead it takes care of the medical expenses. The benefit is that the policy would be immediately recharged so that it would be available for use again by the consumer.

Also Read: 5 Best Health Insurance Plans in India You Can Buy in 2020

FAQs

Ques 1.  Are recharge and restoration cover in health insurance the same terms?

Ans. While amount restoration restores the sum insured whenever a claim gets filed by the insured individual and total premium gets reduced; amount recharge refurbishes the entire sum insured once it gets exhausted.

Ques 2.  Is the feature of amount recharge useful in health insurance?  

Ans. Yes, amount recharge is practically a very favourable investment choice in restoring the insured sum when a medical claim is filed by a customer and his/her sum insured is reduced.

Ques 3.  What is the meaning of the term amount restoration?

Ans. The term amount restoration is used for the coverage benefits that the insurance provider will offer in the event of the insured sum getting exhausted.  

Disclaimer: This article is issued in the general public interest and meant for general information purposes only. Readers are advised not to rely on the contents of the article as conclusive in nature and should research further or consult an expert in this regard.