RADIANT / EDUCATIONAL Q&ARadiant guide
A premium is the price of a specific contract. Two premiums are only comparable once you know the two contracts say the same thing, and they usually do not.
What changes between two policies at similar prices
- Room rent and sub-limits. A cap on the room category, or on a named procedure, scales down associated charges too. This is the single most common reason a settled claim pays less than the bill.
- Waiting periods. Initial, specific-illness, pre-existing and maternity periods each run on their own clock, and they differ between products.
- Exclusions. Read the list against the situations you are actually insuring against, not against the brochure's summary.
- Co-pay and deductible. A mandatory share of every claim is a permanent discount on the premium and a permanent cost at claim time.
- Network and servicing. Whether the hospitals you would realistically use are in the network changes the experience far more than a few hundred rupees a year.
How to compare honestly
Put the policy wordings side by side rather than the quotes. Ask each insurer, in writing, how the policy would respond to the two or three scenarios you actually have in mind. A cheap policy that answers those well is a good policy; a cheap policy that does not is a smaller version of nothing.
Our policy review checklist is the same list in a form you can take into a renewal conversation.
Answered by Radiant advisory desk. General information, not personal advice — your own policy wording and circumstances govern.