and your medical bill for the year is 8 lakh but the same is split between four hospitalisations2 lakh each since each hospitalisation cost less than the 5 lakh limit you wont get anything from topup plans however the insurance company would have paid you if that plan was a super topup as the total expenses incurred was more than 5 lakh in a policy yearsuper topup plans work fine if you can keep the deductible low say 1 lakh and then go for a super topup plan with a high cover in this situation you will be first paying 1 lakh per annum from your own pocket and the insurer will foot the bill only when it goes beyond this limit the logic here is like that of copayment you are ready to bear a part of the medical bill to reduce the overall premium however the problem is most insurance companies wont allow a high topup with low deductible for example most companies will offer only up to 5 lakh cover with a deductible of 1 lakh they will increase the deductible proportionately your parents will need to take a 5 lakh deductible to get a super top up cover of 2025 lakhthe strategy of taking 5 lakh base cover and 10 lakh as super topup with 5 lakh as deductible works out cheaperinsurance or corpuswith medical insurance costs rising some people may think of replacing it with a medical corpus however that is not the right thing to do a serious ailment can wipe out the corpus in a yearhowever even if they have medical insurance your parents should also maintain a reasonable medical corpus this is because all medical costs are not covered by insurance for instance most policies dont cover opd treatments you need to be hospitalised for at least 24 hours to make a claim secondly while all hospitalisation expenses may be reimbursed for younger policyholders senior citizens will have to deal with several exclusions or copayment restrictionsdepending on your coverit works well if your parents are covered under a family floater paid for by you what about the health cover offered by your employers while health insurance policies of some companies cover employees others give options to add parents at a price though these are good depending on these alone may be riskyone basic criterion to be used is certainty of its continuance the corporate insurance will stop once you leave the company says deepak yohannan ceo my insurance club changing companies or starting new businesses are common today so senior citizens depending only on your corporate cover may be left with nothing at the time of needporting company policyyour parents if they are still working should consider porting their corporate cover at the time of retirement instead of buying a new plan since insurance companies know their claim history this transfer will be easy if their health is good however the transfer may get rejected if they have health issues