Health insurance and maintaining a healthy lifestyle never felt more important than in 2020, when COVID-19 caused panic even among healthcare experts. The pandemic has been a reminder for taking care of one's health and securing family's finances.

Eating healthy, sleeping adequately, maintaining personal hygiene, and maintaining mental wellness are surely important, but viral diseases, and accidents could hurt even the seemingly healthy and young people.

Planning ahead with a good health insurance plan is important to shield yourself and your family against such uncertainties, so as to not be suddenly burdened with large medical bills. Sometimes the high treatment charges may put you in a difficult position of choosing between a vital treatment for the loved one and lifelong debt repayment.

Besides accidents and major surgeries, it is now important that your family has an insurance plan that covers COVID-19 to avoid the hefty charges seen in private hospitals.

Why have comprehensive plans become the need of the hour?

Modern lifestyles give rise to modern health problems and surely need modern solutions. One of the reasons for COVID-19's global spread was extensive travel, an integral part of modern lives.

Insurers offer family floater plans and individual health insurance policies to cover different family combinations. An average Indian joint family may include either elderly parents or school going kids or both.

While health plans by employers sometimes cover families, they may exclude the parents or in-laws, requiring you to buy an adequate health cover yourself.

Features like lumpsum benefit on personal accident could help a great deal if an earning member of the family has met with an accident that could temporarily disrupt their employment.

More importantly, having an adequate and comprehensive health cover to protect your family against large medical bills, like in the case of surgery, will make sure that money required for school fees, utility bills, home loan or investment related payments are not disrupted.

These plans ensure that health treatment for a family member is not compromised.

One such comprehensive health insurance plan that will serve your needs in 2020 is the ReAssure Family Health Insurance Plan by Max Bupa. The policy includes up to 6 members of a family with a cover of up to Rs 1 crore.

Apart from in-patient hospitalization charges like room rent, medical practitioners' fees, investigative tests, etc. the Max Bupa ReAssure Family Floater Plan covers pre and post hospitalization medical expenses. The period of the treatment covered is 60 days before you get admitted to the hospital and 180 days after you get discharged from the hospital.

Modern treatments like oral chemotherapy and robotic surgeries are also covered for specified procedures.

Another important inclusion in the plan, which is also the need-of-the-hour, is the COVID-19 cover. In fact, the waiting period for the policy with regards to the viral infection is reduced to just

15 days instead of usual 30 days. It also provides cover for non-payables in the case of COVID-19 treatment like PPE kits, gloves, etc. if you opt for an additional rider.

Buy the right extensive health cover at an early age to enjoy more benefits. Stay safe.