You better buy medical insurance for your parents. Here's why

If you think you don’t really need to buy health insurance for your dependent parents, because your employer’s group insurance policy cover them. Think again. Reason being, there is a good chance that your employer doesn’t cover them or in the future won’t cover your parents under the companies group medical policy, to cut cost.

As per a report published in The Economic Times, on 2 June, “According to an employee health and benefits study by insurance broker Marsh, only 36% organizations now sponsor cover for dependent parents under employee group mediclaim policies. The number of policies covering parents (including cover sponsored by employee) fell to 54% from 65% last year.”

[caption id=“attachment_843919” align=“alignright” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption]

Data show that when a company provides a group cover where an employee’s parents are covered, most claim made were to treat parents and not the employee himself. And, hence it’s obvious that discontinuing such a parental cover would actually decrease the cost for the employer substantially. Of course, there are some companies who allow you to buy a separate parent cover as part of the existing employers group insurance policy, but you will have to bear the cost of the parental cover premiums. Read the full Economic Times story here.

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What you should know: Senior citizens health insurance policies are for people between the age of 65 to 80 years. These police usually offer hospitalisation cover, day care expense, medical expense before and after hospitalisation. Do read for exclusions, now a days policies also cover pre- existing diseases if you agree with the conditions that apply. Relying on your employer to provide for your parents life insurance is not the wisest thing to do. In fact, with the number of times people hop jobs these days, it’s best to buy medical insurance for yourself as well as dependent family members separately.