Health Insurance Riders: Is It Worth Adding to Your Policy?

February 9, 2018

Your health insurance policy has its limitations. Some plans may not cover costs for services rendered for certain cases. Other than that, not all health insurance plans have benefits for pre-existing health conditions.

With that in mind, some policyholders decide to extend their coverage to any services rendered that are not part of their policy. This is especially true for policyholders who know that they need to have coverage for these medical conditions in the near future.

These add-ons to your policy are called health insurance riders. In order to understand whether or not it’s worth considering to add health insurance riders to your plan, it’s important to understand its basics.

Let’s discuss how health insurance riders work and see how it could be beneficial for policyholders.

What are health insurance riders and how do they work?

As mentioned, health insurance riders are additional benefits to your basic policy. It’s like having ice cream but wanting to add extra toppings to make the experience more enjoyable.

By adding riders to your current health policy, you get the additional flexibility that you want. That means you’ll get to have more benefits that you can enjoy.

However, getting a rider comes with a price. That means you have to pay more than what you’re already supposed to. These add-ons are usually about 10 to 20 percent additional costs on top of your premium.

Since this is the case, you have to make sure that the health insurance riders you add to your policy are going to be worth your money.

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What are the most common riders available?

Like managed care policies, health insurance riders come with their own terms and limitations. However, riders cover services within a specific scope. Here are some of the most common riders that policyholders can add to their plan.

Vision care insurance can be added as a rider to your health insurance plan. This covers basic eye care from routine visits to prescription glasses. This can usually be added to your basic insurance policy or a stand-alone dental plan.

Critical Illness benefit provides coverage in order to help pay for expenses if ever a policyholder acquires a qualifying critical illness. Specifically, these are expenses beyond what your primary healthcare benefit covers.

Disability insurance coverage grants financial assistance if ever you end up having a temporary disability due to accidents or critical illness. This will help you get a source of income while you’re not able to report to work during a period of time.

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Get in touch with your insurance provider

Every policyholder should know that these health insurance riders provide benefits depending on the type of rider you’re adding to your plan. With that in mind, getting additional coverage to your plan will depend on your needs.

If you’re thinking about adding riders to your policy, remember to choose one or two that you’ll surely take advantage of. Carelessly adding health insurance riders to your plan even if you don’t need all of them will only be a waste of money.

If you don’t have any pre-existing condition at the time of your application, it may not be wise to spend more on your premium to benefits you may never enjoy.

In dealing with this matter, your health insurance representatives can give you insight on how you should deal with riders. In the end, the decision will always be up to you.

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