Is Maternity Insurance Part Of Regular Health Policy? Know All About It

Taking a health policy makes it easier to afford the cost of treatment. But is maternity insurance also a part of regular health policy? Pregnant women must know about this.

Motherhood most important time of change in one's life. Pregnancy can be emotionally, financially, and physically challenging for women. They have to be strong mentally and financially. Women who are fit mentally and physically will be in the right position to face the challenges during pregnancy and childbirth. Being financially strong helps a woman easily face the difficulties during and after pregnancy.

A health policy along with maternity insurance can be helpful. However, maternity insurance is not a part of your regular health policy by default. Although some insurers have started offering maternity insurance as a comprehensive health policy, many offer it as an add-on feature to the existing policy.  Thus, without examining the features of the policy, many people buy a health policy thinking that maternity facility is a part of the policy.

But they should know that maternity insurance provides coverage for all types of pregnancy-related expenses till the term of the policy exists. Most of the insurance companies also provide antenatal and postpartum expenses and newborn baby expenses. Delivery cost includes medical expenses related to ultrasound, doctor's fees, medicines, and routine check-ups It is not included as the default coverage under your health insurance plan but comes as an add-on feature for some health policies. 

Indranil Chatterjee, Co-Founder, Renewbuy, says that childbirth is a costly affair these days. The cost of standard delivery or cesarean section can range from 40 thousand to 2 lakhs. He said, “A regular health policy will not be enough to bear the huge cost of maternity care and antenatal and postpartum treatment. This will cover basic charges of doctor, hospitalization, which will not serve the purpose of consumers.

Hence, insurance companies have introduced Maternity Insurance as a separate cover to cover the cost of end-to-end treatment and ensure that the entire pregnancy process is comfortable for the consumers." You should also keep in mind that most insurance companies do not offer maternity-based insurance for availing the policy after pregnancy is detected. Rakesh Goyal, Director, Probus Insurance, explains that many insurers treat pregnancy as a pre-existing condition and cover it only after a waiting period of three to four years. Hence, maternity coverage is not available if you are pregnant.