First we, remixed old hindi film numbers, then fashion styles (Sushmita Sen teamed a saree with a spagetti in Main Hoon Na?). Food too,  chinese bhel and paneer pizzas.health insurance. That’s unit linked investments plus medical insurance for you.

We also remixed financial products. Unit linked insurance is a classic example. Now, there’s one more — unit linked

What is a unit linked health insurance plan?
Simply put, it means that you can now pay one annual premium, part of which will get invested to give you returns, and the rest will be used to buy you a health insurance, more populary called mediclaim.

Our reader Manish Singh, 41,*  who lives in Mumbai wants to know whether he should opt for this scheme.

Manish’s wife is 37 and they have two children, aged, 7 and 9 respectively. All these years he has been buying a medical insurance policy for his family. He would pay an annual premium of Rs 9,137 and get a cover of Rs 7 lakh for his family. This would care of all their medical needs. And since he had not made a claim yet on his policy, he had accumulated a no-claim bonus of Rs 2.31 lakh, thus increasing his total cover to Rs 9.31 lakh.

Now, he says, “I have read many articles in the newspapers recently regarding mediclaim policies and I am really confused. I have decided to discontinue my existing mediclaim policy and to go for the new unit linked health insurance policies being offered by leading life insurance companies. Here, by paying a sum of Rs 28,500 as yearly premium I can get my family insured for Rs 14 lakh (Rs 5 lakh for my wife and Rs 3 lakh each for myself and my kids). I can also make investments.”

He asks two questions:

i. Should he switch form a mediclaim policy to a unit linked health insurance plan?Major surgical benefit: Each company has a list of predetermined surgeries. For each surgery, they have a fixed payout, as a percentage of the sum assured. For instance, in case of a bypass, 100 per cent of the sum assured would be paid out whereas in case of knee replacement 60 per cent would be paid out.

ii. How will the premiums be treated, with respect to tax benefits?

Before we answer Manish’s questions, a few details. Two companies offer this policy presently – LIC Health Plus and Reliance Wealth + Health. Here’s how they work:

1. The policy gives two main types of benefits — the hospital cash benefit and major surgical benefit.

Hospital cash benefit: You can choose an amount between Rs 250 per day (in case of some companies, the minimum amount is set at 5 per cent of the annual premium) and Rs 2,500 per day for each day that you are hospitalised. When there is a medical condition, the insurance company will pay you this pre determined sum for each day that you are hospitalised. In case you are admitted to the intensive care unit, a slightly higher amount is paid as per the rules of the company.

Either ways, this policy gives a lumpsum amount and does not pay on actuals like in the case of mediclaim.

2. On the basis of the hospital cash benefit limit that you choose, your premiums will be set.

3. From your annual premium, some amount will be deducted as health insurance charges. From the remaining amount, again charges will be deducted towards your unit linked investments and the balance will be invested in a fund of your choice, either debt or equity.

4. Each family member can claim one surgery only once. The total claims in a year will be limited to the sum assured for that family member.

5. The units in your investment portion will continue to generate returns and you can withdraw them at the end of the maturity period. You can also make partial withdrawals during the term of the policy subject to some company rules.

 *name changed to protect identity 

Question 1: Is it a good decision to move from a mediclaim policy to a unit linked health insurance plan?

The answer, according to Certified Financial Planner, Gaurav Mashruwala is a simple — NO! Here are some important reasons: 

• Each surgery is paid for only once
  If the company has paid you surgical benefits for one surgery in a year, it will not pay for that again in the future. However, in case of mediclaim policies, if a medical condition was not pre-existing at the time of taking the policy, it will be covered in the future.
• No ‘no claim bonus’
  ‘No claim bonus’ is a big benefit in mediclaim policies ,which is absent in unit linked health insurance policies. In a mediclaim policy, for every claim-free year, you get an increase in the sum assured of 5 per cent for the same premium. That’s how Manish has accumulated the bonus of Rs 2.31 lakh.
• No cashless facility
  As of now these policies do not provide a cashless facility. Which means, you will first have to pay the expenses out of your pocket and then claim for a reimbursement. In most mediclaim policies, a cashless facility is available wherein the insurance company will settle your bills directly with the hospital.
• Limited cover
  In unit linked health insurance covers, there is a finite list of surgeries that are covered. This does not include surgeries like fractures from accidents. LIC officials confirm that you can claim only the hospital cash benefit in these cases. Your mediclaim policy will, however, cover accidents.
• Hospital cash benefit only for stay, over two days
  You can claim for hospital cash benefits only if you are hospitalised for more than two days. This means that if your hospitalisation charges per day is Rs 1,000 and you stay admitted for four days, the insurer will pay you only for the last two days. The cost of the first two days will be borne by you. 
• High charges on investment portion
  Because the investment portion is a unit linked plan, this policy suffers from what most unit linked plans suffer — high upfront charges. For instance, LIC’s Health Plus, charges 30 per cent of the premium in the first year and 6 per cent thereafter as policy allocation charge. For Reliance Health + Wealth, it is 25 per cent and 5 per cent respectively. Other charges include policy administration charges, fund management charges.

Question 2: How will the premiums be treated in terms of tax benefit?

Premum paid for the health cover will get you an exemption of Rs 15,000 under section 80D whereas the remaining premium invested in the policy’s fund would give you an exemption of Rs 100,000 under section 80C.Moneycontrol recommends:

For Manish, Mashruwala has a simple piece of advice, ‘It’s best to keep your investment and insurance needs separate’. Which means, continue with a mediclaim policy for health cover and invest in instruments such as mutual funds or provident funds for investment.

 (Source: moneycontrol.com )

Dear HDFC  Customer, read two mails (details at the end of this article) from unknown senders — adminhdfc1@switched.com and customer-onlineservice@hdfcbank.com – informing me that someone other than me was trying to access my account details.

Hence for security reasons they want me to click on a link ‘CLICK HERE TO PROCEED‘ (that goes to this web address: http://www.ruysch.biz//images/animated/li.htm) and verify and reconfirm my membership details. Fully aware that this was an attempt to ‘phish‘ out my confidential banking details I click on the link above.

It opens to a page that fails to impress me. I have been HDFC Bank’s customer for more than seven years now and know exactly how the bank’s home page looks like. The page that I see in front of me contains a few images (four if I understand web page designing).

Interestingly, all the links on this page take you to HDFC Bank’s respective pages. Even the SSL Certificate link takes you to Verisign’s information centre (Verisign is a company that provides internet infrastructure including layered security to protect an organisation’s customers).

Fortunately (for HDFC Bank’s customers), though, the page design and layout fails to entice me to enter my Customer ID and password details in the two boxes provided alongside. For all I know this is a fraud and somebody wants to have access to my bank account.

Fortunately again, the entire effort looks very silly. And those indulging in this kind of ‘phishing’ think that those who use the Internet for banking transactions are morons.

Having said that there are some gullible internet users who fall for the trick and it is for their benefit that we produce here what HDFC Bank’s website says about protecting your banking details online.

Precautions for using NetBanking: Courtesy: HDFC Bank

1. Always check the padlock symbol on the bottom right hand corner of your webpage to ensure that you are connected to a secure session with HDFC Bank. This is the VeriSign security symbol and confirms that the site you are interacting with is netbanking.hdfcbank.com.

2. Please check for the following website address for HDFC Bank NetBanking ‘https://netbanking.hdfcbank.com’ and click on the ‘Verisign Secured Certificate symbol’. This page gives the information on the website authenticity along with the validity of the licence. 

3. Beware of fraudulent websites which look similar to the HDFC Bank NetBanking site (like this one: http://www.ruysch.biz//images/animated/li.htm). Ensure that you are on the HDFC Bank NetBanking site before disclosing any confidential information (NetBanking password, telephone banking password etc) by checking the URL of the webpage. The NetBanking website will have this URL: https://netbanking.hdfcbank.com/netbanking/.   

4. Beware of scam e-mails which may contain a virus or be linked to a fraudulent website in order to elicit your confidential information. 

5. Always logout when you exit NetBanking to ensure that your secure session is terminated. Do not exit simply by closing the browser.

6. Do cross check your last login information available in NetBanking regularly to monitor your NetBanking sessions. 

7. The bank recommends that sensitive data such as credit card numbers, customer ID, and bank account number are typed and that the ‘copy-paste’ function is not used. The data entered by using ‘copy-paste’ function is stored in the clipboard and may be vulnerable to misuse using special programs.

8. Please do not disclose any personal & confidential information to anyone, including HDFC Bank employees. This includes:

~ Net banking password / IPIN
~ Phone banking password / TIN
~ ATM / debit card / credit card PINs.

Here are a few more simple steps to make banking online secure: Courtesy: Bank of India

1. Never access your bank account from a public computer — always use your own PC to log in to your account. Public computers may have programs running on them that monitor your keystrokes, which can be used by people to obtain your account password.

2. Don’t fall for phishing. Sometimes you might get an innocent email, apparently from your bank, requesting you for your account details. It’s a trap. Do not fall for it. A bank will never ask you for your Internet banking password, your debit card PIN number, or credit card or CVV number.

3. Always log off. Never just close your browser. Follow the instructions on your bank website to securely log off after each session.

4. Protect your password. Passwords are the key to accessing your account. Do not disclose them to anyone, not even bank employees. Frame a password that is hard to crack — let it not be your nick name, birthday, spouse’s or kid’s name. Use a combination of letters and numbers, uppercase and lowercase. Also, change your password often.

5. Be wary of fake websites. Always check whether the website at which you log in your account details is genuine. There are fake websites out there that parade themselves as well-known bank websites to procure your account details. Some of them are very convincing. Check the address of the website carefully before typing in your password. Also check for the 128-bit encryption seal (VeriSign) on the home page that loads up.

6. Close all other websites. Before you access your account, close other sites. This ensures that your personal information is not accessed by any other websites which could be running some malware – a programme that tracks your keystrokes.

7. Install AV, patches and enable firewall. Firewalls can go a long way in ensuring that your computer is not subject to unauthorised access. Go to Control Panel of your OS if you have XP and Enable Firewall. Install the latest anti-virus programs and update your computer’s security patches regularly as well.

8. Look for the padlock symbol. On your bank’s website, look for the padlock symbol on the bottom right of the page to ensure that the site is in secure mode before entering your personal details. 

Always remember that there could be people out there who are just looking for one slip up from you to get your account details. Stay alert and your money will be safe.

And now here’s the mail that started it all and we reproduce it as it is:

Due to multiple attempt error while trying to login into your online Account. We believed that someone other than you is trying to access your Account And for security reasons, we have temporarily Flagged your Online Access and your access to online banking will be restricted if you fail to Verify and re-confirm your membership details.

Verify your HDFC Online Banking Access now to enjoy the benefits of online banking and finance to avoid fraudulent activities on your Account Due to the recent Security Update, To Confirm your Account CLICK HERE TO PROCEED.

Thanks for taking the time to learn about our upcoming plan for Enhance Online Security - it’s one more way that HDFC online banking can makes your online banking experience better.