Since all of us have visitors from India wanted to find out which medical insurance do you take for them? Have you taken it from here or from India?
If you had to actually make use of the medical insurance, how was the claim process? Any horrible or pleasant experiences?
Your input would greatly help myself and others in the kutchi community decide the insurance company for their next set of visitors. So please dont hold back and post whatever information you have.
Till now I have always taken coverage thru IndiaNet. http://www.indnet.org. But I never had to file any claims. The deductible was listed as 75$ i think.
http://www.immihelp.com has information on various Health plans such as Fixed coverage or Comprehensive coverage and also gives a online quote.
One good information source is also http://www.bimaonline.com
Have used insurance from Tata-AIG 3 times now. Had to use the insurance here twice. The claim process was simple and the company paid up. Actually for hospitalization they directly dealt with the hospital (no claims etc). We had some other charges which we paid for and claimed in India.
I used Tata-AIG too last year for my parents. Unfortunaltely, we had to use it. Our medical bills were huge but Tata-AIG took care of everything. There was no hassle and they were *very* co-operative.
We took the highest premium, which is Rs.50K for 4 months per person. While the premium is high, I strongly recommend this to anyone. They were really impressive. However, this could be tricky if the person being insured has an existing condition and is over 70.
Thanks for the replies so far. Would be nice if others also relate their choice of insurance and help us all out.
My in-laws had got it from CholaMandalam. Dad had compared CholaMandalam, Tata- AIG and ICICI Lombard – he found CM the best. Dad had to use it and all money was reimbursed in India. Although most of them advertise themselves as claimless – claimless is only for hospitalisation. For doctor’s visit you have to claim for reimbursement.
Check out ICICI-Lombard. We had taken it for my parents visit last time in 2003. Fortunately we did not have to use it.
However one feature of this policy is – you can buy it for any # of days – meaning if you want insurance for 43 days, you can get insurance for 43 days. Most other policies are rounded off to nearest month or nearest 2 weeks.
Bajaj-Allianz is also another provider of Visitors Insurance.
First decide whether you want to go for fixed coverage insurance or comprehensive coverage insurance.
Fixed coverage are much cheaper than comprehensive coverage, but coverage levels are different as well.
Look at the details of what each of them cover and limit to which they will cover.
Most of the insurances from India are fixed coverage (not sure about Tata-AIG as Jeegar mentioned that premium is Rs50K for 4mos, which is about $1250 for 4mos…..).
Earlier we used to buy from India. But lately we have been prefering comprehensive coverage insurance.
Comprehensive coverage is more expensive than fixed coverage. The way I look at it is, we can afford medical bills of few hunderd or even thousand $, but want to be sure that if need be hefty medical bills will be covered.
We bought the comp insurance from http://www.buyamericaninsurance.com/ This website is run by a desi insurance agent. You can check the rates of different plan online.
Most of the insurances won’t cover pre-existing coverage. The one know that covers pre-existing is India Network, however, in fine print it mentions that coverage for pre-existing conditions is only for life-threatening situations, regular doctor visits for pre-existing conditions are not covered.
Some insurances (including Tata-AIG) do cover what they call – “acute onset of pre-exisiting condition”. But like Jeinay mentioned none cover regular checkups for pre-existing conditions.
BTW Tata-AIG does have limits on the amount they cover if the insured person is over 60. Last time around we had taken policy of USD 500k for both my parents but since Dad was over 60 they limited the coverage to 200k (again mentioned in fine print only).
Anybody happen to take insurance for person above 70? What additional hoops one need to jump to get similar coverage as age 50-70?
When my mom had visited us we had taken local insurance but did not have the need to use it.
Check http://www.insurancepandit.com also
That is a Good Site Bhavesh.
Saw the add on Sony for this site….
http://www.visitorscoverage.com/
For our recent trip to USA, we were faced by a strange scenario where I found out most insurances may not cover US citizens visiting USA. When I went to fill out online form for Tata AIG (since that was coming out to be cheaper) it would not allow me to enter all digits of US Passport Number. I later learnt that US citizens visiting US are allowed Tata AIG insurance. Only thing is that you have to do is enter whatever you can online and then call in person to get things rectified.
However its best to contact Tata AIG representative before you fill out online form to understand if there are any restrictions for US citizens visiting US.
Since I did not come to know of the above in time, I went with Liaison Continent Insurance through http://www.insubuy.com
They cover US citizens visiting USA.
For My Dad (Indian Citizen) I booked TATA AIG through insurancepandit.com
Prashant,
being a US citizen, residing abroad, do you have to buy insurance under obamacare? Will it cover you when you visit US next? I ask because, then if parents have green card, OC will cover them?
Kalpendu, I have not followed Obamacare much from here. So dont know whether OC will cover US residents visiting USA.
Adding one more site to the list – http://www.starhealth.in/
By far, looks the cheapest when comparing to all other insurance providers and coverage is comparable with India call support.