In today’s world, obtaining a health insurance policy has become an instrumentally important thing to do, considering the rise in diseases and other health ailments owing to an unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle. An appropriate health insurance coverage will ensure your protection from events that could potentially drain your finances. This will certainly allow you to lead a stress-free life.
One such unfortunate yet extremely common event is road accidents, and no road commuter is exempt from its untimely threat.
As you may already know, a health insurance policy will cover most of your medical expenses. But does a health plan cover car accident injuries, too? To find out the answer to this question, you just read on!
Is road accident coverage an integral part of health insurance policies?
Most of the leading insurance providers offer accident coverage as a part of their base plan. However, this is not always the case. As a result, you need to always make sure to check for required coverages before buying your selected health insurance policy. Moreover, you should go through the terms and conditions and policy document of your coverage to understand the restrictions of your plan.
Typically, regular health insurance policies that come with accident coverage, come with certain limitations. It is always recommended to buy personal accident insurance cover, besides your regular health insurance policy, to ensure you’re saved from the worry of managing medical expenses during every health emergency.
Let’s take a look at the different relevant points regarding your health insurance policy, which includes accident coverage.
What are accidental injuries?
As per the name, accidental injuries occur due to unfortunate roadside accidents. They’re sudden and unforeseeable. Some of the accidents often lead to injuries that can result in the loss of someone’s life and thus require on-time and swift treatment.
Accidental injuries consist of injuries from getting burnt, road accidents, drowning, falling down, and so on.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways reported more than 4.64 lakh road accidents in the year 2017.
This report further mentioned that over 1.47 lakh people did lose their lives as an outcome of these accidents.
How can you file a claim for an accidental injury?
In the event of you getting injured in an accident, filing an insurance claim can help to pay for lost income and medical bills.
The very first step is to notify your health insurance and auto insurance (in case you become a part of a car accident) about the injuries you’ve sustained in your body.
You need to provide detailed information regarding how, when, and where the accident occurred. Keep records of your doctor visits and save medical expenses, as you’ll need to submit those, too.
Finally, you need to complete any forms the insurance company provides you to request payment formally. Even though claims can seek to be quite intimidating initially, taking them step-by-step makes it very doable.
What are some of the shortcomings of a regular health insurance policy?
As already stated before, a regular health insurance policy will generally cover accidental injuries, but there’s going to be some limitations to its coverage. Some of the shortcomings of a basic health insurance plan are as follows.
Not all health insurance providers will offer coverage for accidental injuries
In such situations, you need to buy a personal accident add-on to enhance the coverage of your regular health insurance policy.
Policies that do come with accidental coverage, generally come with an upper limit
For instance, a ceiling on coverage for the doctor’s fee, room rent, and so on.
Some health insurance plans cover only hospitalization expenses
The other expenses need to be covered by you or the insured person himself.
The role of supplemental insurance policies
Supplemental/add-on policies, such as accident or critical illness insurance, can seek to provide you with additional support in the event of an unfortunate injury to you. They’ll pay cash benefits directly to you, regardless of what your chosen health plan covers.
That money you obtain can be used to cover rent, groceries, and out-of-pocket medical expenses while you’re still recovering.
Policies such as these are not mandatory but are worthy of being considered in case you struggle financially after any accidental injury. They’ll provide you with the required peace of mind.
Personal accident insurance vs. health insurance
A personal accident insurance policy and a health insurance policy vary in a number of ways. A health insurance policy will seek to cover a myriad of medical conditions, however on the other hand, a personal accident insurance policy will only cover the medical expenses that have arisen from unforeseen accidents.
Some health insurance policies cover accidental injuries, as described in their policy, but it’s best to have a separate policy or an add-on.
Coverage benefits of personal accident insurance policy
Under the personal accident insurance policy, you can avail certain benefits like, accidental death cover, total permanent disability cover, permanent partial disability cover, and temporary total disability cover.
Some of the additional benefits of obtaining a personal accident insurance policy include coverage of the ambulance costs of the insured person, reimbursement of transport charges to the hospital, compensation for accidental burns and broken bones, coverage of repatriation costs of the mortal remains of the insured to his/home or cremation ground.
Furthermore, in accidental death situations, the dependent child’s education also gets covered to a certain specified limit as per the terms of the policy.
Legal aspects of accident insurance coverage
If a third party has caused your accident, the legal process for injury compensation may seem to get quite complicated. Insurance companies have whole teams that manage settlement and liability details.
Fortunately for you, you can hire a personal injury attorney to assist you in navigating it all, communicating with insurers, and fighting for maximum compensation. They will understand the laws and regulations inside and out. Although they’ll take a share of any settlement, having their professional expertise in your court is certainly going to be worth it in the long run.
Final Words
A regular health insurance policy usually comes with accidental injury protection. However, there are various restrictions you need to cope with. As a result, it is always suggested that you buy a personal accident insurance policy, even if as an add-on, to secure yourself and your family from untimely and unfortunate accidents that require swift treatment procedures and a lot of money to deal with.
hi there,
i just read your survey on health insurance policies, i completely agree with the explanations.