Increasing Coverage After Buying The Insurance Policy

One mostly buys a life insurance cover to provide financial protection to their loved ones in the event of an uncertainty related to life. While, our needs and responsibilities change continuously throughout life, our financial obligations change too, requiring updated solutions every now and then.

If you are at a stage in life, where you see the situation changed from the time you bought your life insurance plan, it is worth revisiting your insurance coverage and altering it as per needs. You might want your promises and responsibilities towards your family’s secure future taken care of in time.

Normally, you should consider an increase in your life insurance coverage if you experience a change in your financial commitment, which may arise due to an addition of new member in the family, you making a significant financial decision or when you are expecting a major shift in your consistent income.

How much extra life insurance would you need?

Once you have identified the need for an additional insurance cover, you must next assess the amount of addition required. Deciding the gap between your current coverage and the ideal cover that will serve your purpose may be difficult.

It may sound overwhelming at first, but you must start by listing down your present financial obligations, and add to them the potential obligations. Following this figure, you can decide how much more coverage your loved ones might need.

Conducting an annual insurance checkup is a smart idea. You must reconsider the type of coverage you have and might need in the future, to your coverage amount. Do these activities even if you don’t think there have been any significant changes in your lifestyle, or family circumstances. This can help you ensure that your family stay adequately protected and avoid any unpleasant surprises if they ever have to file a claim. To stay on track, do an annual review around the same time each year; your birthday month is a great time to start, or you can do it during the month of January, to start the New Year off on the right foot!

How to increase your life insurance coverage?

While buying additional term insurance policy can be a way of increasing your coverage, many modern-day life insurance plans offer options like riders, add-ons and top-ups to add to your existing life cover during the course of the policy. One of the reasons you want to go with the latter option is its cost effectiveness over buying a new policy.

The iSelect Smart360 Term Plan by Canara HSBC Life Insurance offers you the ease of upgrading your life cover through a variety of options like a spouse cover, add-on policy benefits and increasing/ decreasing coverage. Following are the ways to increase your coverage under the iSelect Smart360 Term Plan:

1. Cover your spouse under the same policy

Getting married changes everything, you have more responsibilities and an added reason to plan for the future. If your spouse is not working, you might want to review your life and disability insurance coverage and also consider adding your spouse to the same policy. When both the spouses are working, you have to keep your family prepared in case of loss of one spouse’s income due to an unfortunate event.

With iSelect Smart360 Term Plan, you can add the Spouse to your policy within one year from the date of the marriage. For a working spouse, the Sum assured , coverage option, add-on covers and any benefit payout option can be selected by the spouse at the stage of getting added for coverage under the policy, whereas, for a non-working spouse, the sum assured is fixed at Rs. 25,00,000 which will remain same throughout the policy term.

2. Increase your sum assured as per needs

If you have welcomed a new member to the family or plan to welcome one soon, it is important to review your life insurance policy. You may want to increase your cover to match your survivors’ expenses in case the unfortunate happens. If you are paying regular premium against your policy, you have the option to increase your sum assured thrice during your policy term without any underwriting on occurrence of either of these life events – Marriage, Child Birth or House Purchase.

3. Opt for an additional child support benefit

Have you had a baby or are about to have one? As much as this new member brings happiness to the family, there are several added responsibilities that it brings along. But with the iSelect Smart360 Term Plan you can ensure their future is fully secured, while you work at making their present the best possible. A child support benefit can be added to the plan subsequently within one year of the birth of the life assured’s baby.

Child Support Benefit is an additional benefit that helps you safeguard your child’s future by opting for an addition sum payable over and above the amount payable on death or on diagnosis of Terminal Illness. The sum received from CSB can be utilized to take care of all the milestones you have planned for your child.

Purchasing a life insurance policy is a great way to ensure protection for your family's financial future in case of your absence. While long-term planning is important, a life insurance policy that was bought five to seven years ago may no longer offer the right coverage for your current situation and even your future financial needs may look different. Therefore, experts suggest reviewing your insurance coverage every year. In addition, it is important that you reassess your life insurance cover whenever there is a major change in your life.