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IN Tax 2024

iCalculator™ IN: Medi Claim Premium

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Mediclaim refers to health insurance premiums paid for yourself or your spouse, dependent children, parents, or other family members. Mediclaim policy covers healthcare-related expenses for you and your family.

Mediclaim in detail

Anybody between the age of 18 and 59 can take a mediclaim policy. Existing policyholders can keep on renewing their mediclaim policies until the age of 80. Mediclaim policies are available for 1 year or 2 years, and you have to take a new policy once your old policy expires.

The minimum cover for a mediclaim policy is ₹50,000, and the maximum limit is ₹500,000. If you are taking a policy for your dependents along with yourself, you need to take a similar cover for all the policyholders. For dependent children, the sum assured can be 50 per cent of the sum assured for adults. Mediclaim is offered by several providers like ICICI Lombard, HDFC Ergo, Oriental Insurance, etc.

Example 1: Let’s look at the mediclaim policy offered by Max Bupa. You can take a mediclaim cover of between ₹200,000 and ₹500,000. The policy is available for a period of 1 year or 2 years, and you cannot claim any benefit beyond the policy period. Some of the features of the policy are direct claim settlement, which means the insurer will directly pay to the hospital. This saves you the trouble of paying to the hospital and then waiting for an insurance claim. The plan also covers hospitalization expenses as well as expenses incurred before and after hospitalization.

Mediclaim premium depends on the age of the insurer. For younger insurers, the premium is less. On average, the mediclaim premium for an individual aged between 30 and 65 can be anywhere from ₹8,300 to ₹16,500 depending on the sum insured.

Tax benefits of Mediclaim

You can claim a tax benefit of up to ₹45,000 every year for any medical premium payments. The breakup of this ₹45,000 is as follows:

  • You can claim deductions of ₹15,000 for a mediclaim premium paid for self, spouse, and dependent children. If you or your spouse is a senior citizen, you can claim up to ₹20,000.
  • In addition to the above, you can claim an additional ₹15,000 for medical premiums paid for parents; you can claim ₹20,000 if your parents are above 60 years.
  • You can claim an additional ₹5,000 for expenses incurred on preventive healthcare check-ups of self, spouse, children and parents.

Note you cannot claim a tax benefit on mediclaim payments made by cash. You need to make payments by check or through other modes such as online or debit or credit cards.

Use our Mediclaim calculator to check how mediclaim premiums affect your tax payable.

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