Medical Insurance insights

I am pretty sure that many of you would not have taken any kind of medical insurance under the pretext that the company provides the same for the family.

However, I am sure most of you would have taken some kind of life insurance policy by now and would probably be having a couple of life insurance policies. It is quite possible that many of you would have taken medical illness raider or some kind of a dreaded disease benefit as well as part of the overall cover and have combined the life insurance cover with the medical illness benefit. So far so good that you have done a wise thing.

However, have you folks claimed the income tax benefit that ones as part of Section 80D of the income tax rules. This benefit is over and above the Rs 1 Lakh deduction that one can get as part of Sec 80C (investment in PF, PPF, ELSS, Pension schemes, qualified bonds etc). Typically part of the insurance premium that you pay for your policy which has illness or medical insurance related benefits goes towards medical insurance premium for which you can get income tax benefits under Section 80D.

When you get the receipt for the insurance premium payment, there will be separate mention of the amount that one can get as a rebate for Section 80C and Section 80D. So please relook at your premium receipts and make sure that you get the benefit of Section 80D.

Here is a small note on Sect 80D - Under this section, the income tax assesse can claim a benefit of upto Rs 10000 per annum for the premiums paid towards medical insurance. The amount of the premium (Rs. 10,000) is fully deductible under Section 80D of the Income Tax Act. Thus, you save Rs. 3366 on your tax payable if you are in the highest income tax bracket.