Maternity Insurance

India has a list of health insurance providers offering comprehensive and affordable health insurance policies. However, among them, there are none which provides exclusive maternity insurance policy covering all related expenses. The primary reason for this is because insurance is meant for unexpected risk, and pregnancy is not regarded as such a risk. Lately, few health insurance providers in India have included maternity insurance benefits as one of the rider or feature in their personal health insurance policy. However, the coverage is limited and is available only after three to four years of continuous coverage with the health insurance provider. Also maternity cover in personal health insurance policy fails to offer coverage for maternity checkups, medicines expenses and termination of pregnancy within the first 12 weeks. Most group health insurance policies in India offer maternity insurance benefits to the employees or spouses of their employees. Maternity Insurance benefits under group health insurance cover only the act of delivering the baby, either normal or caesarean. However, it fails to provide cover for pre-hospitalization period, which includes ultra-sound, regular check-ups, termination of pregnancy within the first 12 weeks and the doctor's consultation fee. In a nutshell, maternity insurance stipulations vary from insurer to insurer. Also, group health cover offered by employers have nine months waiting period which implies that the employee should successfully complete nine months in the organization before the conception stage. Most insurers even require immediate intimation of hospitalization of the insured for delivery or any pregnancy-related reason. A person’s insurance benefits can be put at risk if fail to follow the simple formalities. Keeping in mind the rising medical cost, it is advisable to opt for mediclaim insurance which along with other benefits also provides maternity insurance benefits to the insured and his family. Latest feature addition to maternity insurance is ‘The new born baby cover’ which implies that the new born baby will be covered as an insured person from birth and thus all vaccination expenses of the new born will be covered until he/she completes one year.