Which should be priority: life insurance or health insurance?
Life insurance and health insurance are two major components that make a strong personal insurance portfolio. Life insurance covers your family against the financial burden in case of your untimely demise. Whereas health insurance policy provides you financial aid against the hospital bills in case of illness. No matter which age group you belong to these are required for everyone, and thus there are numerous options in both the plans to suit various customers and their needs.
Many from the young generation procrastinate the need of buying life insurance and health insurance at an early stage, which should be changed. The sooner you buy, the better are the benefits. Although if your income and expenses don’t permit you to purchase both the plan, you choose one of these two. Read further to know how to make the right decision between these two.
Why choose life insurance?
Life insurance provides cover to your family in case you suffer accidental death. The cover paid is a pre-decided lump-sum amount. You must opt for this option if you need a financial aid to cover loss of income, save tax, investment option, safeguard your retirement or ease savings. If you are sole bread earner of the family, it is more important to buy life insurance as it will provide your family with death claim to survive despite the loss of a source of income. While deciding a life cover, you must consider some points like the number of dependents, accumulated wealth, and outstanding liabilities.
Why choose health insurance?
Medical emergencies like cardio-vascular diseases, cancer, etc. may land you into significant unplanned expenses due to hospitalisation. Medical expenses are touching the sky and this is why you need to be ready to face them in times of emergency. This policy provides you with financial help against the expenses like hospital bills, surgery fee, ambulance fee, doctor’s fee, etc. You must buy health insurance on priority if you are more prone to a medical emergency. Other than hospitalisation charges, there are many factors that cost a lot of money like room rent, maternity expenses, Ayurvedic treatments, etc.
You can plan your insurance in following manner to get better security and benefits.
While you are in your 20’s, you have lesser responsibilities and hence you can start with term. Though the death uncertainty factor is rare, still it is suggested to invest in a term insurance plan to get better coverage over a long period of time. If you have surplus money to invest, you must buy a health insurance policy as illness or medical emergency does not come at any particular age but can happen to anyone anytime. And thus, one must be prepared. Once you enter in your 30’s, you will probably have or plan to have a family and thus considering for a family floater plan in health insurance must be your priority, and similarly, in term insurance having a child plan to back your child’s education. While entering your 40’s, make sure to buy endowment policy for substantial retirement corpus.
