First health policy in India — what should I be reading past the sum insured? Health

Room rent capping, co-payment, disease-wise sub-limits and restoration, roughly in that order. A policy with a 1% room rent cap can proportionally reduce your whole claim if you take a room above the limit, which is how people end up paying 40% of a bill on a policy they were told was cashless. Sum insured is the headline; the sub-limits decide what you actually receive.

Claimed for a hospitalisation in year two. Cashless was approved, and then they deducted consumables — gloves, syringes, that whole category — which came to a meaningful chunk of the bill. Some policies now sell a consumables rider. Ask about it before you need it.

On pre-existing conditions specifically: the compulsory waiting period for pre-existing disease came down from four years to three under the 2024 product regulations, and the moratorium after which an insurer can no longer reject a claim for non-disclosure dropped from eight years to five. Both were applied to existing policies as well as new ones. Family history is not itself a pre-existing condition — an undisclosed diagnosis of your own is.

Network hospital list in your own city, not the national headline count. '12,000 hospitals' means nothing if the two you'd realistically go to in Pune aren't on it. Check the list, then check it again at each renewal, because hospitals leave networks over billing disputes.

Buy young for the waiting periods rather than the premium. Every year you delay is another year where you're still inside the pre-existing and specific-disease windows at the moment you finally need it.

Going freelance changes your tax picture and your continuity of cover at the same time. Worth an hour with an adviser who isn't the person selling you the policy.