Don’t Let Your Coverage Expire: Why Timely Health Insurance Renewal Matters

With rising medical costs, health insurance is more crucial than ever. This makes keeping it active as essential as having one. Health insurance renewals ensure that your policy is always in full effect. Not only does this prepare you for unforeseen emergencies, but it also safeguards you against financial losses caused by the failure to renew on time.

5 reasons why not renewing insurance on time is a bad idea

Here are the insurance disadvantages of not renewing your policy on time:

1. Policy lapsed? No coverage.
With health insurance policies, failure to renew them on time will result in loss of any type of coverage between the expiry and renewal dates. This could prove costly, in case of emergencies during that period. 

2. More waiting periods.
Failure to carry out timely health insurance renewals significantly resets the waiting periods for pre-existing diseases, maternity, and other treatments. This is because missing out on renewal forces you to buy a new health insurance policy and complete the waiting periods all over again.

3. No Claim Bonus cancelled.
The No Claim Bonus is awarded on your insured sum when there are no claims within the policy year. This vital benefit goes to waste if you do not renew your policy on time. Ultimately, you lose the opportunity to gain more from your insurance without spending a dime. Essentially, you miss out on saving money for responsible behaviour.

4. High renewal costs of a lapsed policy.
Another insurance disadvantage of failure to renew your policy is that you will be required to buy an entirely new policy altogether. Considering your failure to keep your health insurance active and having turned a year older, you may also be charged a higher premium than your first policy. 

5. Health checkups, again!
When buying a health insurance plan, your insurer asks you to do a health checkup before your insurance becomes active. If you renew your policy on time every year, this is a onetime affair. But if you fail to renew on time, your insurer can ask you to get a health checkup done again, which consumes unnecessary time and effort.

What is a grace period in health insurance?

After your renewal due date has passed, you are given a ‘grace period’ to provide some added time to pay your premium. This is, in a way, a second chance to pay your premium on time. Failing this, you could face the above-mentioned insurance disadvantages. A pro tip is to pick an insurance plan that offers maximum grace period, just as a precautionary measure.

Terms of policy renewal
Here are some important terms of health insurance renewal you should keep in mind:

• The health insurance policy lapses after your mentioned term of coverage (typically one year from issue).
• To not compromise benefits, the premium needs to be paid, without fail, within the grace period mentioned in the policy.
• Policy renewals do not go through in case of fraud, misinformation, or non-cooperation.
• Honesty about medical conditions can ensure a smooth renewal process.

How to evaluate your plan before renewing it

Before you renew your health insurance policy, keep these evaluation points in mind:

• Consider increasing your coverage amount if your medical requirements have changed over the policy term period.
• If you require any add-ons, mention this to your insurer at the time of policy renewal.
• If you want to change your insurer or insurance provider, do so only after your health insurance expiry date.
• With the increase in age, you might want to consider coverage for specific diseases in your new health insurance policy.

Key Takeaways

As you may have realised by now, failing to renew your policy on time can result in the loss of all policy benefits. This makes timely premium payments, or at least sticking to the grace period, of paramount importance. It ensures that you can avail yourself of the financial preparedness offered by the policy at all times and protects your savings from unnecessary medical expenditure.