Should you choose a family floater plan or an individual policy?

Imagine you’re young and just starting a family and wanting to purchase a good health insurance policy.

You’re healthy now, but what about your spouse or future children? What happens when you’re older? What happens when you develop certain chronic diseases?

All of these are questions that may be lingering in your mind.

In this article, we’ll break down the differences between individual health insurance policies and family floater plans, when to get each type of policy, and the top health insurance plans in each segment.

Best Individual and Family Floater Health Insurance Policies in 2024

Heads Up: It takes an average person up to 5 hours to read & analyze a policy, and 10 hours or more to compare different plans and make a decision.

This is why we propose a better alternative - taking a 30-minute FREE consultation with Ditto’s certified advisors. We have a spam-free guarantee, and we’ll never push you to buy a plan. Don’t delay this - we have limited slots every day, so book a quick call here before they run out.

What Are Individual Health Insurance Policies?

Individual health insurance policies cover a single person under a single sum insured. You have your own separate cover, which means that the benefits and coverage are exclusive to you, i.e. only one policyholder.

Individual health insurance policies are particularly beneficial if you want separate coverage for yourself, have specific needs or if your family members have different healthcare requirements.

For example, if you have a pre-existing condition that requires frequent medical attention, an individual policy can provide coverage that meets your needs without affecting the coverage of other insured family members. This is especially true if you purchase one of the top health insurance policies in 2024.

Family floaters, on the other hand, are slightly less comprehensive when considering specific healthcare needs.

What Are Family Floater Policies?

Family floater health insurance policies cover the entire family under a single policy. This means that there is a single cover amount, and it is shared amongst all family members, providing a collective pool of benefits.

Family floater plans are often more economical for young families. They offer the same cover amount at a lower premium compared to multiple individual policies. This is because multiple people are covered under the same policy umbrella.

That said, if you’re a family, what type of policy should you opt for? Well, that entirely depends on your specific requirements, and you should probably consult an honest insurance advisor to figure out what is best for you. However, here are a few pointers to consider when making a decision.

Should You Opt for Individual or Family Floater Policies?

Choosing the right health insurance plan can be daunting, especially when deciding between a family floater plan and an individual policy. Both options have their own advantages and disadvantages, and the best choice depends on a number of factors. Here are a few of them:

1. Age of the Family Members: Most people want to buy a family floater plan for themselves and include their elderly parents in it. However, this provision is not available in most cases. Most companies have a strict definition of what a family constitutes when it comes to a family floater plan. Generally, this includes the husband, wife and children. The children, however, need to be younger than 21 or 25, depending on the policy you choose. So, if you are looking to buy a policy for your aged parents, you are the child. And if you’re older than 25, then you may not be able to include them in the plan. In this case, you may have to buy a family floater plan for your parents (mother and father) and then an individual plan for yourself.
2. Health Conditions of the Insured Members: If any family member has certain complicated conditions, the insurer may suggest that you buy a separate individual plan for them. This is because these people may need policies with very specific features, and family floater plans may not extend them. So, if somebody in your family has pre-existing conditions, you may have to consider buying them an individual plan.
3. Convenience: If you’re buying a family floater plan, you’ll only have to fill out the application once, submit a single proposal form, pay your premiums all at once, and receive updates associated with a single plan. This helps ease the operational load, and it’s unlikely you’ll forget to pay your premiums on time.

If you’re buying several individual insurance policies, you’ll have to fill out the application multiple times, submit multiple proposal forms, pay your premiums multiple times and receive a whole host of updates associated with all the different insurance policies you hold. This could be an operational nightmare, and if you’re single-handedly responsible for keeping all the documents in order, it’s possible you may forget to pay your premiums.

4. Your Needs & Preferences: Some features are available only in individual plans, and some are available only in family floater plans. Let’s say you are looking to buy a plan with maternity benefits. Then you will likely have to buy a family floater plan. This is common with most insurance companies. They expect both the husband and the wife to be covered in a family floater plan before they extend maternity benefits. So, if you are looking for maternity coverage, individual plans won’t cut it.

5. Shared Sum Insured: If you’re purchasing a family floater policy, ensure the cover amount is sufficient for potential medical expenses for all members insured under the policy. Look for a good no-claim bonus and restoration benefits so that the chances of your policy running out of cover are lower. You can also consider purchasing a super top-up policy that gives you additional cover.

Things to Keep in Mind While Purchasing a Health Insurance Plan

1. Individual vs. family floater: These policies are not separate health insurance plans. The same policy can be purchased as an individual policy or a family floater policy. For example, let’s say you’re purchasing Optima Secure by HDFC ERGO. You can purchase this for yourself as an individual plan, or you can purchase it for your family as a family floater. However, keep in mind that while this is available for most policies, insurers don’t offer this for all policies.
2. Ditto’s Hierarchy of Health Insurance Needs: When purchasing any health insurance policy, go through these features. This will give you a broad overview of the primary features of that policy.

Why Talk to Ditto for Your Health Insurance?
At Ditto, we’ve assisted over 3,00,000 customers with choosing the right insurance policy. Why customers like Srinivas below love us:

✅No-Spam & No Salesmen

✅Rated 4.9/5 on Google Reviews by 5,000+ happy customers

✅Backed by Zerodha

✅100% Free Consultation

You can book a FREE consultation. Slots are running out, so make sure you book a call now!

Conclusion

Both individual and family floater health insurance policies have their own advantages and disadvantages.  The right choice depends on your family’s health needs, age, and financial situation. You have to look at coverage options, price, use case and the paperwork before you commit to one option over another.

For personalised, spam-free insurance advice, you can always contact our IRDAI-certified experts at Ditto Insurance.