Having health insurance is a must to ensure that you are not saddled with huge expenses in case of expensive health treatment/hospitalisation. Buying health insurance when you are young results in lower premiums and negligible chances of rejection of your application. If you are a corporate employee covered by a corporate health plan, purchase additional health cover since you may lose the corporate health cover in case of change in employment. Choose a plan that offers coverage for a wide range of medical ailments and expenses (hospitalisation, pre and post hospitalisation care costs, day care procedure costs, etc.).

Ensure that all family members’ needs are covered in the health plan. Choose a family floater health policy instead of individual health plans. In the former, there are no sub-limits member-wise. As against this, in individual plans, the amount available to the family member will be restricted to the cover available to him specifically.  If you already have a health plan, review it to ensure that you have adequate cover for yourself and your family members (at least Rs 1 lakh cover per family member). Add a critical illness rider to your plan. In case of critical illness, once the illness is diagnosed, the insurance company pays out the claim amount irrespective of whether treatment/hospitalisation is needed or not. Choose a health plan which offers lifelong renewability. Make sure the health plan’s network of hospitals and doctors includes your preferences. Select an insurance company which pays out a higher number of claims; also select a cashless claims policy (the insurance company makes payment directly to the hospital) as against reimbursement plan (where you need to make payment to the hospital and then seek reimbursement from the insurance company). Check the pre-existing disease clause (the wait period till the policy covers a pre-existing disease; a lower wait period is preferable).

Health plans usually have sub-limits for every expenditure (e.g. a limit on ambulance costs, room rent costs, etc.). Look for a policy with higher sub-limits, or preferably, no sub-limits on individual expenses. Some health plans require you to pay a specific amount in case of hospitalisation. Check this clause to understand how much you need to set aside for this. Read through the exclusions (illnesses that are not covered by the policy) to be aware of the costs of illnesses you will need to bear. Purchase a separate health plan for your elderly family members since insurance companies usually levy certain restrictions on coverage for seniors.

Once you have taken care of these 3 important aspects, you could then consider starting your investment journey.