In HDFC ERGO Optima Secure, your base cover gets doubled instantly upon purchase!! What is the catch of “Secure Benefit”? Let us explore this in detail.
Whenever someone opts to buy HDFC ERGO Optima Secure, the eye-catching point is – “Your base cover gets doubled instantly upon purchase, without having the need to claim it. This benefit will instantly increase your Rs.10 lacs base cover to Rs.20 lacs at no extra cost.”
I suggest that my clients inquire with HDFC ERGO regarding the rationale behind the immediate doubling of the sum insured upon purchasing the policy. If the sum insured can indeed be doubled instantly, it raises the question of why they do not provide a policy with a sum insured of Rs. 20 lakh instead of Rs. 10 lakh, accompanied by the claim that “Your base cover is doubled instantly upon purchase, without the necessity of making a claim. This benefit will elevate your Rs. 10 lakh base cover to Rs. 20 lakh at no additional cost.”
Secure Benefit of HDFC Ergo Optima Secure – What is the catch?
The Secure Benefit provides a unique advantage. Unlike the No Claim Bonus, which increases your sum insured only when no claims are made in a year, or the Restoration benefit, which activates only after you have fully or partially depleted your base sum insured and any relevant bonuses (if any) within a policy year, this feature grants you immediate double coverage!!
This appears to be a promotional discount. Who could ignore a 50% price cut? However, it’s crucial to keep in mind that nothing is truly free. Whether you’re dealing with this insurance company or others, their main goal isn’t to offer charity; they are businesses. As a result, it’s essential to be extra cautious when faced with such offers from the financial industry.
By obtaining the Optima Secure Health Insurance Plan with a coverage amount of Rs.20 lakhs, your coverage will instantly double to Rs.40 lakhs. You can use the extra amount for any eligible claims during the policy year, as per the policy’s terms and conditions.
What are the conditions?
# Applicable only once a year
The Secure Benefit can be utilized only once during each policy year, and any remaining balance cannot be transferred to the subsequent policy year.
For instance, if you have a sum insured of Rs 10 lakhs under this health insurance policy and have chosen the “Secure Benefit” option, your sum insured will increase to Rs 20 lakhs. If, after a few months, you are hospitalized with expenses totaling approximately Rs 15 lakhs, your insurer will settle the hospital bill. However, the leftover sum insured of Rs 5 lakhs will not be available for use in the following year.
# It can’t be restored
Once the secure benefit is over, it can’t be reinstated within the year like the restoration benefit of health insurance. Hence, assume that your health insurance sum insured is Rs.10 lakh and secure benefit is Rs.20 lakh. Assume that you have a hospitalization bill of Rs.40 lakh, then the base sum insured Rs.10 lakh + Rs.10 Lakh of secure benefit and restoration (subject to conditions) of basic sum assured Rs.10 lakh will be payable the remaining Rs.10 lakh is your responsibility.
# Secure benefit will not apply to all claims!!
As per the policy brochure, the secure benefit will be available to the Insured Person as a Sum Insured for all claims admissible under Section 3 (Base Coverage) and Section 4.3 (Protect Benefit) during the Policy Year.
As per Section 3, the expenses covered are – hospitalization expenses, other expenses (refer to brochure), home health care, domiciliary hospitalization, Ayush treatment, pre-hospitalization expenses, post-hospitalization expenses, and organ donor expenses. Under Section 4.3, it is only “Protect benefit”. I have just listed these features. If you wish to know the complete details of these features, then it is important to refer to the brochure.
# Secure benefit is not at FREE of cost!!
Compared the other similar products of health insurance, you noticed that the premium is higher than other plans. Hence, by introducing this feature, obliviously you end up paying more which is just an eyewash as per me.
# HDFC ERGO selling this as an alternative to Base Plan + Super Top UP!!
The issue with HDFC ERGO lies in the fact that the highest sum insured offered under their Super Top Up plan is limited to Rs.20 lakh. It is unclear why there is such a restriction, especially since the purpose of a super top-up is to provide greater coverage. Consequently, if an individual is considering a base plan of Rs.20 lakh along with a super top-up of Rs.40 lakh, the recommendation is to choose the secure benefit option, which effectively doubles the sum insured from the very first day.
It is important to note that, as previously mentioned, the secure benefit does not match the features of the BASE PLAN. If the features of the BASE PLAN were equivalent to the SECURE BENEFIT, it raises the question of why the base plan is not offered alongside the additional element of the SECURE BENEFIT.
Conclusion – I am not saying that this product is bad or you must stay away from buying this product. However, buyers must be aware of what is the catch here in offering double the base sum assured instantly as “SECURE BENEFIT” instead of offering double the base sum assured for the same premium. The other features of this product are fantastic and I am still recommending my clients to go for this product. But instead of buying a single plan, one must look for bigger coverage of Super Top Up. You can buy this product for the product features but not the secure benefit feature alone.
Repeating again….Any eye-catching offerings, free offerings, or discounted offerings from the financial world come at their own cost…BEWARE!!
