A family medical insurance is a type of health insurance that guarantees the care of your health and also that of your family, offering a lower price than an individual policy would have for each member of the family. As is the case with health insurance, Spanish insurers offer various modalities, which adapt to the needs and demands of everyone.
Types of health insurance for families:
- With copay or without copay: In policies with copay, you are responsible for part of the price of the treatment, while in those without a copay, the insurer pays for the entire treatment. The copay is a stipulated amount each time the visit is made and, not surprisingly, insurance without a copay has a higher premium.
- Reimbursement of medical expenses: these policies allow you to freely choose which doctor you prefer to take care of your diagnosis or treatment, and you can even choose professionals who are not on the insurer’s medical list. In this sense, when choosing a doctor who is not part of the medical list, the insurer will reimburse you between 80% and 90% of the cost of the visit or treatment, depending on the conditions.
What should a good family health insurance cover?
The coverage that good medical insurance for families must include is the same that we would look for in any medical insurance, such as primary medicine, diagnostic tests, or specialists. However, as it is health insurance designed for a group of people of different ages, some extras must be added, such as:
- Psychological care: this is usually an extra and optional coverage that is often left out of the policies, but that can be of great help to families.
- Family planning – The best health insurance policies for families should include a family planning program, gynecology for IUD implantation and contraceptive counseling, and even reproductive assistance programs.
- Preparation for childbirth: it is also convenient to have this type of coverage, although it is necessary to monitor the periods of lack.
- Newborn: the best health insurance for families includes coverage for the medical needs of newborns.
- Hospitalization: important coverage when you have children or are contemplating having them.
- Dental coverage: perhaps one of the most interesting coverages of a family health insurance when you have children since it offers a guarantee for basic and frequent treatments among children, as well as some preventive treatments.
Factors that influence the price of family health insurance
When calculating the price of a family life insurance premium, various factors are taken into account that can have a great impact on the final price of the insurance. Beyond the coverage that we have chosen or the insurance modality, we will have to look at:
- Age: is one of the factors that most influence the price of health insurance, the older the owner and the spouse, as well as the younger the children, the higher the price of the policy.
- Health status: certain personal characteristics such as smoking, alcoholism, addictions, or the fact of suffering or having suffered chronic or serious illnesses will increase the price of the policy.
- Place of residence: in large cities such as Barcelona, Valencia, or Madrid it is easier to catch diseases or get sick, as exposure to certain dangers increases substantially, this causes the price of the policy to also be higher.
- Physical condition: Oddly enough, having a very high weight is also a factor that determines the price of the policy. This is because insurers consider people who are overweight or morbidly obese to be more prone to disease and heart disease.
How much does private health insurance cost?
As with other insurance, such as a car or home insurance, it is practically impossible to find a standardized price for all your clients, since the calculation of the policy depends on many factors.
Normally, when calculating the final price of your private medical insurance, insurers take into account some factors such as your age, the area in which you live, and a whole series of personal factors, such as the fact that you have suffered or suffered some long or serious illness.
You should also keep in mind American Amicable life insurance, depending on the type of policy you choose, your health insurance will be more expensive or cheaper. For example, health insurance without a copay will always be more expensive than one with a copay or one with reimbursement of medical expenses.
What factors influence the price of health insurance?
As we have already explained, many factors directly influence the final price of your health insurance. This is because insurers adapt the policy to the particularities of each user, therefore, they take into account certain aspects when calculating the price.
- Age: your age is one of the factors that most influence the price of your health insurance. You have to keep in mind that two people of very different ages will have very different medical needs. The older the age, the more likely it is to present diseases and pathologies, so the older you are, the higher the price.
- Place of residence: your place of residence will be another factor that influences the price of your health insurance. Some insurers have the same price for all autonomous communities, with only a few exceptions such as Catalonia, Madrid, or the Balearic Islands.
- State of health: your state of health will be another factor that insurers will take into account when calculating your price. This means that, if you are young but have a serious or long-term illness, the price of your policy will be higher than that of another client of your age, but without illness.
- Several policyholders: Insurance companies often offer discounts based on the number of policyholders. These are the formulas that are usually used in health insurance for families, which have specific coverage for families, with guarantees focused on caring for each member of the family at different stages of their life.
- Insurance coverage: the most basic policies are those that offer assistance for the most minor day-to-day problems. That is, those that do not require hospitalization. These insurances, as you can imagine, are the cheapest.
- Type of insurance: there are insurances with copays and without copays. The former is responsible for a part of each consultation or treatment, leaving the rest in the hands of the insured. Many companies establish annual copayment limits. You will also find policies that offer high, medium, or low copay. If the copay is high, the insurance premium is lower, and if the copay is low, the premium will be higher. If you choose health insurance without copays, the premium will be much higher than any of the insurances with copays. In return, you will have access to all services at no cost.
- Exceptional cases: finally, there are exceptional cases such as the self-employed. Self-employed workers do not have sick leave, so they may lose income if they are sick. For this reason, many insurers offer adapted policies with specific economic guarantees.
Tips for finding cheap health insurance
- First of all, we recommend that you use a health insurance comparator so that you can quickly and easily analyze the prices, coverage, and conditions of each of them.
- We also recommend that you pay attention to the copay level and copay prices. Sometimes large costs can be hidden behind copays, so you should analyze the costs of each service separately, especially if you plan to use certain services a lot.
- Also review the limitation of services, since some coverages have this type of limit, such as the number of consultations or tests that you can perform each month.
- You can save some money on your health insurance if you hire it through promotion and offer, and also if you decide to pay your policy annually.
- You should also look at the coverage of each insurance and hire only those that you think you will need.
