Individual Health Plans Vs Family Floater Health Insurance Plan

Health insurance is a valuable asset for good health for any individual. But getting one can be an uphill task if you don’t perform your homework well. Talking about the homework, the initial step is, choosing the right health insurance plan that matches your requirements.

While choosing the plan, the first question you have to confront is-should I buy an individual or a family floater health insurance plan?

Well, both of them are indemnity plans. The actual expenses incurred during hospitalization are reimbursed up to the sum insured. Every insurer offers these two variants for the health insurance product.

So, before telling you how to decide which one is better, let us understand the difference between the two.

Individual Health Insurance Vs Family Health Insurance-What’s The Difference?

Advantages of Family Floater Health Plans and Individual Health Plans

• The basic difference between the two is that an individual health insurance policy can be brought to insure an individual, whereas a family floater plan can be purchased to insure the health of the whole family. In the former, the policy is issued in the name of one person only.
• In case you wish to get the entire family’s health insured, you will have to buy a separate plan for the rest of the family members. Here, the family members will have a fixed sum assured in the policy.

           Whereas, if you buy a Family Floater Plan, all your proposed family members will be covered under a single plan with a single ‘floater’ sum assured shared by all the members.

• A family floater health insurance plan can be explained as an extended version of an individual health insurance plan as it can cover an individual’s spouse, children, and even parents. Certainly, an individual health insurance plan is quite expensive than a family floater health insurance plan.

So, if you want to opt for a low-budget plan, you must go for the family floater plan.

Disadvantages of Family Floater Health Plans and Individual Health Plans

Despite costing more, an individual plan is more favorable for people considering a few disadvantages of family floater health insurance plans. Know how:

1. In the family floater plan, the premium is decided about the senior-most member of the family. It is a disadvantage to the policyholder.
2. The insurers, in this plan, are offered renewals lasting for up to a certain age only. It can be explained as a senior family member is covered in the policy and if he/she breaches the maximum renewal, then neither of the balance family members would be able to carry forward the policy.
3. If children migrate to individual health insurance plans who were earlier covered in a family floater plan, they will lose credits for waiting periods, etc.
4. The entire No Claim Bonus gets nullified for a year in the family floater plan if any member makes a claim.
5. Only a few spectra of relationships such as kids and parents are included in most of the family floater plans and not grandparents or in-laws.

Both plans provide health insurance coverage and financial assistance at the time of medical emergencies to an individual. Both can be brought online via insurance brokers like Insurancedekho.com or offline through direct agents as well as from direct health insurance companies.

However, people prefer purchasing it through insurance brokers as it is the easiest, fastest, and most convenient mode of getting insurance with the added advantage of a shorter turnaround time.

Keeping all the pros and cons of both policies in mind, it is pertinent to mention here that it may be a better plan of action for young family members to be covered in a family floater plan. Whereas for high-risk or senior citizens, individual dedicated covers are good to be explored.