Wellness Benefits in Health Insurance Explained

Did you know that the human body is called the perfect machine? However, circumstances cause breakdowns even in the most robust mechanisms. The rigours of a fast-paced lifestyle and poor diet-planning, compounded by environmental issues, are increasingly causing critical illness in a large section of the global population, including India. For example, an Indian state-level disease burden study* indicates a two-fold increase in the number of persons affected with cardiovascular diseases over 16 years.

With the ever-rising cost of medical treatment, health insurance is becoming necessary today as a measure of financial protection. But a crowded health insurance market calls for a thorough analysis of your needs vs. benefits to select the best one for you.

Should the discount on health insurance premiums be a factor in your decision-making process? Or should you consider wellness benefits in health insurance in totality? Let’s find out.

What is Wellness Benefit?

Several health insurance plans in India are offering wellness benefits as an add-on to gain a competitive advantage. Wellness programmes promote a healthy lifestyle with proper food habits and regular exercise. What began as a marketing point in health insurance is actually helping the insured pursue a lifestyle that positively impacts one’s health. 

List of Wellness Benefits in Health Insurance

Wellness benefits help you take a proactive approach to your health, rewarding you for healthy habits and giving you the tools to thrive. Let’s explore the most exciting benefits that motivate you to live a healthier lifestyle:

1. Health Checkups

A stitch in time saves nine—whether you remember the adage or not, there is no denying that timely health checkups improve the functioning of your critical organs and body parts; if you notice any deviations from normal, you can take quick remedial action.

Many policies offer reward points, which can be used for discounted health examinations and vaccinations at designated clinics. For the insured, this helps with early detection of illness, enabling preventive measures.

2. Wellness Coach 

A wellness coach is a fitness professional who guides clients to achieve mental and emotional well-being, recovery from illness, and renewal of the life forces. 

Wellness rewards may include sessions with a coach who acts as a mentor, helping the policyholder with dietary intake and nutrition balance, maintaining a good body mass index, and more.

3. Subscription to Wellness Centres

A healthy life helps your body stay fit and improves your immunity, keeping several diseases away. Therefore, another standard benefit insurers offer is health or fitness centre membership. 

In simpler terms, the insurance company is saying, “We know a healthy lifestyle keeps you well, so we’ll help you get there by giving you a gym membership!”

4. Discounts on Health Insurance Premium Renewal

A popular category of wellness benefits is discounts on health insurance premiums for comprehensive health cover. While the discount on health insurance premium renewals is a ready reward preferred by some as a direct monetised benefit, one must consider wellness benefits in health insurance with a holistic view. In the end, individual suitability must be the guiding principle.

Why Should Wellness Benefits Not Be Ignored ?

Living a healthy life and avoiding medical problems is ideal, but our fast-paced world often throws roadblocks in our way. Lack of sleep, unhealthy eating, and skipping exercise contribute to many critical illnesses.

Imagine the impact of a disease like diabetes, which is partly lifestyle-induced – an ICMR study (published in 2023) estimates the number of affected persons in India in 2023 to be over 100 million! It is common medical knowledge that unchecked diabetes can increase your chances of cardiovascular issues, kidney diseases, nerve damage, retinopathy and more. A wellness plan can be your motivation to prevent this disease and its devastating consequences.

When you choose a wellness plan as an add-on to your health insurance, you get several benefits: protection from the financial liabilities of high medical costs, better stress management, reduced recovery time after injury /illness and more.

Key Takeaways

Health insurance safeguards you and your family from the financial burden of expensive medical treatments.

While you can easily buy health insurance online, choosing the best-suited policy is tough. India’s expanding health insurance market is crowded with wellness benefits in health insurance from leading insurers.

With each plan claiming to be unique and superior to the other, it’s a difficult choice for the consumer. You require considerable research to cut through the layers of marketing communication to match the offered benefits to your needs.

Alternatively, you can seek the help of experts—like PhonePe. The team of specialists at PhonePe can guide you to the best-matched policy without bias.