Group Health Insurance

Group health insurance is an insurance scheme where a people with a similar health risk profile are grouped together and offered an insurance plan under a master policy. A group could be all the employees of an organization, a collection of people who are in the same profession (truck drivers) etc.

Most group insurance plans in India are bought by employers for their employees. It achieves three things

1. Demonstrates that the employer cares about the employees

2. Provides the employees a very cost effective insurance plan as the premium is far lower than what it would be if the employee were to buy the same amount of insurance

3. Allows coverage of certain situations like maternity expenses which are very difficult to cover under an individual health insurance plan

4. Huge perceived value as the insurance premium that the company pays could be sometimes as much as 50% lower than what the individual would have paid. So even though the company might have paid only Rs 5000 towards the insurance cover , the employee might perceive the insurance paid to be in the region of Rs 10000 or more

These days, it has almost become the norm that any serious organization which cares for its employees would be having a comprehensive group health insurance plan.