Precautions before taking health insurance policy

Before taking any mediclaim/health policies [eligible for tax benefit under Section 80(D) of Income Tax], please check the following one sided clauses of the companies
1. Co-payment (% of total expenses on treatment one has to pay)
2. Health check up details and cost to be borne by interested ones. Also the venue of health check up (your home/distant hospital).
3. Age up to which the new policy will be active. Try for maximum age duration, preferably whole life.
4. Check for the same premium or variable premiums at some intervals of age. Please check your affordability of paying premiums at later stages after 60 years of your age.
5. Exclusion of illness (Illness which will not be covered).
6. Coverage for existing diseases & waiting period for existing diseases.
7. Prefer policy through known full time young professional agent/ advisor to give you service. Normally most of the agents do not want to give any service after getting the first and renewal premiums and they just give you a call center nos. to contact in your illness/accidents A lot of help/service is required from them once you fall ill/get hospitalized to complete various formalities. Please do not look for paybacks from such advisors, which others give from their commissions.
8. Try to avoid taking health policies based on credit/debit card through bank based on sms or short email. There are many hidden/ one sided/detrimental clauses against interests of policy holders which are never disclosed by companies/ banks before taking policies.
8. Request for general policy document of the plan being offered and read all terms and conditions, exclusions & benefits carefully.
9. If you are already having a health policy valid for next reasonable life of yours either increase the sum assured or get a top up policy instead of a new primary policy, for economy in overall total premium.
10. Few plans also offer facilities for outdoor treatments including reimbursement of doctors' fee, cost of medicines and medical checkups with difficult riders like co-payments. Check for them and use your discretion to take or not.
11. One can use few sites like policy baazar etc. to compare benefits and terms and conditions of many plans by leading companies. Checking will save you a lot of money on premiums and harsh conditions of the few companies.
12. Do not opt for low insurance value (Sum assured) as getting it revised for higher side later will be extremely difficult including fresh health check up & payment for the same. Depending upon one's premium paying capacity, one should not opt for less than Rs 5 Lac or better Rs 10 lac sum assured, difference not being the double for the later and may be much less in few companies.
13. Check for one time or multiple times benefit of treatment in a year within the sum assured. Most companies offer for one time benefit in a year.
14. Check for percentage limits on various expenses e.g. room rent, medicines, doctors fees, implants, medical tests fees etc. including sub-limits for few facilities. Some of these limits will lead to lot of deductions after hospitalization due to these limits. Lesser annual premiums in such policies may ultimately lead you to pay more for treatment.
15. Check the grace period allowed in premium payment before lapse of policy. Few companies do not allow.
16. Decide carefully for one company for health insurance and opt for porting to any other company after very careful consideration before maturity of existing policy.
17. Compare for no. of day care procedures included in policies.
18. The last but the most important is the premium that you pay for your health insurance today and later after middle age and more so after 60 years of your age. more