You care deeply for your family. You are a responsible person. Therefore, it’s no wonder that you have purchased the best health insurance renewal protection plan that you could have for your family. You searched on internet for which are the best health insurance companies. You compared hospital network of HDFC Ergo and Star Health insurance. You compared health insurance claims paid ratios of ICICI Lombard & Bajaj Allianz. You met agents and your banker to see which is best health insurance policy for your family. You asked your friends, neighbours, aunts, uncles and even your boss. You compared the best price for health insurance on online portals. And finally, you purchased the best health insurance policy. Now you can relax about at least one thing in your life, right?

Its here that you need to understand about 0.3% chance of catastrophe and how you can prevent. You see 0.3% is 1/365. And what is another way to look at 1 in 365? It’s one single day in a year of 365 days. Now imagine that is the day when your health insurance renewal and health insurance policy premium was due and you delayed paying the premium. There is always tomorrow.  You can always talk to your insurer and your agent. They will understand that you were busy in office, or out with family, the internet was not working. And what’s one day when you have been paying premiums for so many years, right?

This might sound a bit ludicrous to you. Who thinks like that. Alas, that is human nature. IRDAI data will tell you that 30% health insurance policies lapse every year. Now some of it might be due to the customers, for whatever reasons, making a deliberate decision to discontinue their health insurance policy but a large part of lapsation happens due to simple inertia and the frustration that comes from the process of restoration. Here is what the scenario looks like.

The customer doesn’t pay up on time. The policy lapses. The customer comes back to pay premium and is surprised to find that:

1. Insurers are asking him or her to apply for a new policy. Also, sometimes the customer has to undergo full medical tests
2. All the no claim bonuses accrued are lost which had increased the original sum assured of the policy in a big way are lost
3. All the waiting periods that had been overcome after years of paying premium will now come back

Now the customer is angry and dejected with the insurer and even his agent. She says if ones got to buy a new policy why not shop around. Then the process described above in the opening para of this piece comes into play. Just that the customer now finds that over years her health has deteriorated some bit and the premium of the new policy for the same assured is higher. And sometimes even application rejected. End result of the people who lapse only a fraction get around to buying new health insurance coverage again.

You don’t want to take that chance on the health insurance policy you bought hence renewing on time is important. When you don’t pay your premium on time, you put yourself and your loved ones on risk. The nature of risk is that it is unpredictable and can happen anytime. And if you believe in luck then its axiomatic that things go wrong when you can least afford them to. So how can you protect yourself and your family from this. Here are simple steps

1. Mark the date of renewal on your calenda. Better still mark 15 days ahead of renewal. Keep the reminder at daily for first seven days. After seven days keep the reminders at every six hours

• Share the reminder with your family. This will have twin benefit of having additional reminders as well as sharing a habit of responsibility with your family.

• Did we hear you say why put old fashioned reminders when all you have to do is put the premium on auto deduct on your policy? Well, that’s very good step you have taken and congratulations. But here is the catch. Autopay’s fail so many times and sometimes for reasons which are out of your control. So, autopay is convenient sure but its not replacement for being responsible.

• If there are any changes to the family, please communicate the same to your insurers well ahead in time so that premium can be adjusted or the coverage extended to new family members. This is very important step that most customers do not take.

In the end its your family. Your responsibility. And the risk comes to us all. Happy renewal