Health Insurane Plan from SBI - Hospital Cash’

SBI Life Insurance has recently launched a health insurance plan called ‘Hospital Cash’. It provides fixed daily allowance for every day of hospitalisation, irrespective of the hospital bill. The plan is also available online. In case the insured is admitted into an ICU, twice the amount of fixed daily allowance is allowed. The plan is available for a fixed policy term of three years and has flexibility of premium payment, including annual, half-yearly and quarterly. It is offered for sum assured (SA) of Rs2 lakh to Rs5 lakh. The fixed daily allowance can range from Rs2,000 to Rs5,000. The ICU benefit varies from Rs4,000 to Rs10,000. A mediclaim policy reimburses only the expenditure incurred on the treatment of an illness at a hospital. There are several other expenses which mediclaim policies do not reimburse—travel, attendant’s lodging, loss of income (for patient and/or attendant), pre-hospitalisation diagnostic tests, medicines, etc, that can run up to as much as 30%-40% of the total treatment cost. The Hospital Cash plan—no substitute for mediclaim—is a supplement for these extra expenses.

Hospitalisation due to pre-existing diseases is not covered for the first two years of policy. The benefit illustration specifies annual premium of Rs3,240 for a healthy 32-year-old opting for Rs3 lakh SA which means fixed allowance of Rs3,000 per day for hospitalisation, subject to a maximum of 100 days (renewable till the age of 75). By way of comparison, the Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Hospital Cash 60-day plan (renewable up to the age of 65) offers daily allowance of Rs2,500 on premium of Rs1,985, while Tata AIG General Insurance HealthCare Level 4–180-day plan (renewable up to the age of 54) offers daily allowance of Rs3,000 on premium of Rs4,086.