Individual Health Insurance versus Family Insurance - Which Is Better?
If you are planning to opt for a health insurance, you will have to decide whether an independent health insurance plan or a family insurance plan is more cost affective. The individual health insurance is less expensive and can be stretched to cover many people, if the person is not suffering from many diseases. However, if you opt for an individual health insurance plan, you need to decide if you want a major or a basic plan, or if you want to choose the doctor on your own and pay a higher fee, of choose from the list available at the insurance company and hence, pay a small premium or fee.
But if you have to pay for your family too, the scenario changes as it is less expensive to have all the family members included in one insurance plan than have different insurance plans for every family member. Just like the size of the umbrella depends upon the number of people who want to fit under it, the cost of the medical insurance plan also increases as the number of family members increases.
However, the more the number of family members covered in one plan, the more problems might arise. For example, if anyone in your family is a smoker, the family insurance plan will cost more than a family comprising of only non-smokers. Also, asthma and diabetes are not covered by the insurance plans as they say that it is a pre-existing condition. The sex, age and general health of the family members also matter a lot in deciding the premium cost factor.
The family insurance plans include all the things that an individual insurance plan does, like x-rays, laboratory services, surgery, ambulance services, dental care, doctor's office visits, mental health care, emergency treatments, prescription medicines as well as hospital stays. But eye care is excluded from most of these plans, whether it is an individual health insurance plan or a family health insurance plan.
The decision of which health insurance plan to opt for depends upon your economical status and your preference. |
