If you have a car, you know the dangers of driving without a spare tire. Car drivers are always afraid of tire punctures. If you know there is a risk of tire puncture, it is better to have a spare tire that is ready to serve as the replacement.

Top-up health plans play a similar role. Once the sum insured of your current policy exhausts, the top-up plans become active on your health insurance policy and serve as a boost. To put it simply, thebase policy covers hospital bills up to the sum insured, while the top-up plan covers expenses after the sum insured is all used up. This boost of coverage has to be purchased separately. It is a popular option among policyholders because helps you increase the level of coverage while making sure that your premium is still affordable.

How top-up health cover works

The best way to understand something is to know how it exactly works. That, in turn, sometimes means seeing an example of how it works. Hence, here is an example of how a top-up health insurance policy works:

Imagine you are under a health insurance plan with ₹7 lakh as the sum insured. Now, if you buy a top-up plan with ₹ 3 lakh as the sum insured. Now, if your claim on the hospital bills goes beyond the initial ₹ 7 lakhs, the top-up plan will come into effect. The additional amount within the sum insured of your top-up plan will be covered. For example, the final hospital bill comes up to ₹ 9 lakh, the extra ₹ 2 lakhs will be covered by the top-up plan.

While you can purchase a top-up policy individually as well, it often works best if you buy it as additional coverage over the base health insurance policy. Another option you have is to buy the top-up plan with as much sum insured as the base plan. This way, you will have double the coverage of your base without spending double the money.

* Standard T&C Apply

Types of top-up policy types

There are two major types of top-up health policies. They are regular top-up and super top-up.

Under the regular top-up plan, each claim is combined with a deductible limit. If the claim is more than the deductible, the exceeding amount will be paid.

In the case of super top-up plans, the total claims made in a year are added against the deductible. If the total claim is higher than the deduction, an additional amount will be paid.

* Standard T&C Apply

Things to remember while buying a top-up plan

Here are some tips for buying the best top-up policy:

• Compare the deductible amount with the sum insured of the existing health plan
• Select optimal coverage. Use a health insurance premium calculator to decide the perfect coverage for you.
• Check the coverage benefits to make sure the coverage is inclusive
• Check the pre-existing illness waiting period and select the short-term plan for accelerated coverage
• Check coverage limits and sub-limits and choose plans that do not significantly limit coverage
• Check the list of networked hospitals and select the plan that has the widest network of hospitals

Top-up health insurance plans come with a host of benefits as discussed above. In addition to them, they also offers deductions under section 80d medical expenditure which makes them an even more enticing product worth consideration. Please note that tax benefits are subject to change in tax laws.Insurance is the subject matter of solicitation. For more details on benefits, exclusions, limitations, terms and conditions, please read sales brochure/policy wording carefully before concluding a sale.