More and more people decide to take out private health insurance to access specialized medical consultations more quickly or to reduce waiting times, among other reasons. But, what aspects must be assessed before choosing a company? What factors are included in the coverage?
Finding the best option among the different health insurances on the market is not always, however, an easy task. For this reason, if we do not want to make mistakes, it is convenient to analyze in advance the most relevant aspects that are behind an insurance of these characteristics and the confidence that the attention, professionals, benefits, quality and coverage of the offer that we are going to contract deserve. We give you ten keys for it.
1.) The cost of the premium
The premium is the amount that the client pays to be covered against certain risks. In this sense, this amount varies depending on age, the number of people insured in the same policy or the existence or not of co-payments. “It is important to bear in mind that the premium tends to grow substantially as the years go by,” they point out at the OCU.
2) Check the discounts
Some insurance companies apply a series of explicit or hidden discounts during the first years of the policy contract, but they end up disappearing and it may not be possible to change at that time. Therefore, this section must be carefully analyzed before formalizing the contract.
3) Maximum age
When choosing health insurance, different aspects are taken into account, such as the state of health, annual medical expenses or the income of the insured. Another factor that influences contracting is age, since “many companies establish a maximum age for contracting insurance for the first time, which on average is usually 64 years old “.
4) Current medical situation
Just as certain limits are set with the maximum contracting age, insurers can also exclude people with previous pathologies and, if they accept them in the insurance, “the usual thing is to charge an extra premium or exclude certain treatments.”
The main telephone companies have raised the prices of their convergent packages between two and five euros in recent months. In return they have offered more data (unnecessary for many people), but the increase is already noticeable on the bill.
5) Grace periods
Depending on the contracted policy, there may be waiting periods for certain medical services between the formalization of the contract and the start of treatment. This happens, for example, for pregnancies and childbirth.
6) Concepts excluded in coverage
At a general level, the risks produced as a result of the consumption of alcohol or drugs are not usually included in the policy . Nor certain risk activities or damage caused by natural disasters or epidemics.
7) Permanence
The policy is usually renewed automatically each year if neither party is against it. However, the insurer may decide to do without the insured and, in that case, ” they would only have to notify the cancellation two months in advance , or a premium increase such that in practice it would be expulsion.”
8) Health Insurance in companies
Group company insurance usually has certain advantages for customers and, in addition, the monthly installments can be cheaper. The maintenance of these conditions is usually subject to permanence in the company, and you may not be able to maintain them after retirement when perhaps you will use it the most.
9) Change of policy
To change the policy you will have to consult the entity if it is allowed and the available term. In this sense, do not cancel your current policy until you have contracted the new one, since, if you currently have a health problem, they might not admit you or put some specific conditions on you.
10) Compare across multiple entities
It is important to know what the conditions offered by each insurer are. For this you can check all the health insurance plans available online as per your condition.
