close
Insurance

Understanding Restoration Benefits That You Can Avail When Buying Health Insurance

The need for health insurance in 2021 is more than ever before. Businessline reports that there was over an 8% increase in the rate of medical inflation as of May 2021 owing to second wave of the pandemic. Thus, it may be possible that your health insurance coverage falls short. At such times, you might feel that buying a fresh health insurance policy is the only alternative, but no. There is something called as the restoration benefit that health insurance companies offers. This article talks about these benefits that can be checked when buying a health insurance policy.

What is restoration benefit in health insurance?

Restoration benefit is the one wherein your health insurance policy is recharged to its original sum assured so that you need not purchase new health insurance plans to cover the increased cost of treatments. This feature is commonly available as an add-on or even bundled with some policies by health insurance companies. In case of repeated hospitalisations, this feature comes handy as owing to soaring medical inflation rates, more than one or two treatments in a single policy year exhaust the coverage in its entirety. * Standard T&C Apply

Is restoration benefit advisable for you?

If you are someone with either an individual health insurance policy or a family floater plan and look forward to enhancing the policy’s sum assured, you can make the most of this restoration benefit. Since a family floater plan is shared among the different beneficiaries, multiple hospitalisations may consume the sum assured. Thus, restoration benefits of health insurance come handy.

What are the types of restoration benefits that can be bought?

Restoration benefits are available in two types based on the level of exhaustion of the coverage—complete and partial exhaustion.

For plans with complete exhaustion restoration feature, the entire amount of sum assured must be exhausted.  Only when all such amount is used, that is when the restoration feature kicks in. On the other hand, partial exhaustion restoration benefit is where even a part of the coverage is used up, the insurance policy is restored to the original policy sum assured. Thus, all future claims can be settled without having to worry about policy coverage falling short for medical treatments. * Standard T&C Apply

How to effectively select a policy with restoration benefit?

Restoration benefit is an additional feature that can be opted at the time of policy purchase at nominal cost. To assess its impact, you can make use of health insurance premium calculator that helps determine the impact on your policy and aid the comparison process. When selecting a policy with restoration benefit, the following are some pointer that can help you:

  • The restoration benefits cannot be carried forward to the subsequent policy period even if not used during the current period.
  • For complete exhaustion plans, the sum assured is reinstated only when exhausted in a single claim. For partial exhaustion, the reinstatement happens as you use up the coverage.
  • Such policy feature is available for policies with all sum assured and not only for higher sum assured plans.
  • Only subsequent claims are considered under the restoration benefit and not the first policy claim.
  • Restoration feature is useful especially in family floater plans where the coverage ‘floats’ among multiple beneficiaries.
  • The benefit of restoration feature can be availed only by one beneficiary at once.

* Standard T&C Apply

These are some points about restoration befit can help you understand it thoroughly and get one based on your requirements. Insurance is the subject matter of solicitation. For more details on benefits, exclusions, limitations, terms and conditions, please read sales brochure/policy wording carefully before concluding a sale.