Health insurance sector is fast growing in India and with it there are various healthcare insurance products being launched in India.Healthcare costs are rising and growing awareness about the importance of preventive care has led to growing demand in health insurance products.

Let us take a look at the Year on Year growth of Indian Insurance Market and its quite evident. In FY03, the health insurance market stood at Rs 1,160 crore, in FY08 it had crossed Rs 5,000 crore. That’s a growth of 60% in a years time.Despite the growth there is still a large need for health insurance in India. As many as 75% people in India are without employer provided coverage and over 85% people in India are not insured at all.

So even as the life insurance market gets more and more established, in the general insurance space, healthcare insurance plans are coming up thick and fast. ICICI Prudential launched its Health Saver Plan. Under this scheme a part of the money that you pay as premium will give you health insurance cover till the age of 75 - just like a regular policy. But another part of the premium will be put in a Health Fund to take care of extended healthcare needs - so if your healthcare cover is for Rs 1 lakh, you can dip into those funds for extra coverage, should the need arise. But you can't dip into the fund for 3 years from the day the policy is activated.As said by an ICICI Prudential officer: Alternative therapies are not part of the hospitalisation cover. They come as part of the health savings benefit. In 4th and 5th year, 20% can be claimed, in the 6th to 10th year, 50% can be claimed and after the 10th year 100% can be claimed...

Fianlly if you are going shopping for health insurance policies of this nature, following are the checkpoints to be noted:-

Is there a cashless facility?

How large is the network of medical centres?

How competitive is the premium compared to other healthcare policies?

Is it third party administered or is it managed directly by the insurance company?

Where is your money getting invested?

But regardless of the product,it is essential that all individuals should have a health cover. And since we are already in tax planning mode, its important to remember that a health insurance can get you tax deductions of up to Rs 15,000 every year.