Top-up Vs. Super Top-up- What Should You Opt for-

Top-up Vs. Super Top-up: What Should You Opt for?

With top-ups and super top-ups, you can get extra coverage and protection on your health insurance. But, understanding the difference is important.

Top-up Vs. Super Top-up- What Should You Opt for-

Both top-ups and super top-ups are additional coverage options for your health insurance. Risks like accidents and diseases don’t come knocking on your door; they can happen almost randomly, leaving you in a financial lurch. Imagine if your claim amount was higher than your coverage? This would mean you would have to pay out of your own pocket. Something, surely, you would not want to do.

Top-up Health Insurance Plans

Top-up is an additional health insurance cover, which is defined as a reimbursement of expenditure for a single disease, beyond your existing cover limit. For example, if you are covered for Rs. 5 lakhs and, God forbid, an acute cardiovascular disease has struck you, your entire coverage amount would be claimed in treatment and further diagnoses. With a top-up plan (considering costs of high-risk diseases today), the extra costs are covered post the threshold limit.

What is the Threshold Limit?

In any top-up plan, there is a threshold limit that is a limit set by the health insurance company. It’s the maximum amount you can claim through your health policy. For example, you took a top-up plan of Rs. 10 lakhs. In this case, your threshold limit or maximum coverage amount is set at Rs. 5 lakhs. Your total claim amount turned up to be Rs. 8 lakhs. Your top-up plan would only provide with an additional Rs. 3 lakhs as a benefit, with the first Rs. 5 lakhs being covered by your regular health insurance plan. If expenditure would rise further, you would still have Rs. 7 lakhs left to be utilized from your top-up plan.

Super Top-up Health Insurance and Its Benefits

Super top-up takes your top-up benefits a notch higher. By its definition, there are similar executables with your regular top-up plans. These plans provide coverage for multiple hospitalizations and they focus at the aggregate claim. They combine your claims to calculate the deductible limit.

But, you get a few extra benefits with a super top-up. They are mentioned as follows.

Single-bill Claim Amount Restrictions

The top-up plan comes packed with many benefits, giving you an added cover. However, it is restrictive in terms of the claim amount. If your claim amount doesn’t cross the required threshold, your top-up will not cover you. Let’s see how this works through an example.

Consider that you fall sick twice in a particular year. At both times, the bill amount claimed was Rs. 4 lakhs. Your regular health coverage of Rs. 4 lakhs was enough during the first time considering you had a health plan of Rs. 5 lakhs. No top-up was needed here. Here, your top-up plan doesn’t come into the picture as the threshold amount is not reached. Your super top-up phealth insurancelan comes into play. It will cover you for the total billed amounts in a year – irrespective of multiple billings.

A clearer depiction is given as follows

Health Insurance PolicyTop-up CoverSuper Top-up Cover
Rs. 5 LakhsRs. 5 LakhsRs. 5 Lakhs
Claim one – Rs. 6 lakhs on a single billWill cover you for remaining Rs. 1 lakhWill cover you for remaining Rs. 1 lakh
Two claims of Rs. 3 lakhs eachNo cover considering threshold is not reached in single billWill cover you for remaining Rs. 1 lakh as total bill amount crosses the threshold.

Other Differences

  • Most super top-up plans also cover you for multiple illnesses. Top-ups may be restricted to just a single illness.
  • Also, the premium costs of super top-up plans go a tad higher. In comparison, top-up covers cost less.

Being aware of major differences between top-ups and super top-ups will help you pick a sensible plan. In case of a sudden illness or disease, you would have added a financial cover.

So, if you have a health insurance cover, now you can extend it using a top-up or super top-up cover to enhance your cover and enjoy the benefits.

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