Insurance Life Plan for Cancer

According to WHO statistics, the number of cancer related death expected in India in 2015 is around 7lakhs. According to WHO, lung, oral, lip, throat and neck cancers are the most common among men while women suffer more from cervix, breast and ovarian cancers. Experts say the incidence of the killer disease is expected to rise five-fold by 2025.

Cancer is a disease that we all dread and getting diagnosed with some form of cancer itself is debilitating.  Treating any form of cancer at any stage of the disease is expensive and your entire live savings can get exhausted in the blink of an eye. More worrying is not having the adequate finances to treat our loved ones.  

Critical illness covers provided by insurers offer a way out to this financial crunch that we face during such occasions. Critical illness policies cover anywhere between 12-30 diseases and the premium charged is commensurate with this coverage. We have met individuals we complain that the premium is not affordable under critical illness cover and the changes of these diseases –other than cancer- occurring is very low. 

There is good news! You can now buy insurance cover to protect you from Cancer only.  Surprisingly this product has been launched by a life insurance company- HDFC Life! HDFC Life Cancer Care policy provides lump sum benefit on diagnosis of Cancer which will help you tide over expenses like Out of pocket medical expenses, Out of Network specialist, Experimental Cancer Treatment, Travel & Lodging etc. when treatment is far and so on.

Benefits offered are categorized into 2- Early Stage cancer benefits and Major Cancer benefits.  There are 3 different types of plan:-

Silver:  The lump sum benefit would be paid on diagnosis of Carcinoma –in-situ, early stage cancers and major cancers. 25% of the Sum insured would be paid for Carcinoma –in –situ and early stage cancers where as 100% of the Sum insured would be paid for major cancers.

Gold: The benefits paid under silver plan plus additional benefits are received by the insured. Increase benefit means that your sum insured increases by 10% of the initial sum insured every year till it reaches 200% of the initial sum insured or till the event of a claim.

Platinum: The benefits under Gold plan would be paid to the insured along with regular income benefit. Under regular income benefit, 1% of the applicable sum insured would be paid to the insured on a monthly basis for the next 5 years from diagnosis.

The benefits of Carcinoma-in-situ and early cancer is payable only once during the policy term and for the first occurrence only. Once benefits are paid for major cancer, the policy will cease to terminate. Only income benefits would be paid as per the schedule.

Any individual in the age group of 18-65yrs can take the policy and the sum insured can be anywhere between 10lakhs and 40lakhs. There is a waiting period of 180days from the policy inception date and 7 survival days from the date of diagnosis. The premium is relatively low and it would differ for male and female insured, the sum insured and the term of the policy.

Now that you don’t have an excuse, don’t delay taking a cancer care protection cover for you and your loved ones!