As important and beneficial as health insurance is, it is sad to find that the level of penetration in Nigeria is still less than 5%. It appears that the major reason for this is ignorance. Many Nigerians have never heard about health insurance, have no idea how it works – let alone its benefits – and therefore have not made any attempt to purchase it for themselves or their families.
Here are the Top 7 reasons why you should have health insurance:
#1: You’re Protected When You Need Urgent And Unexpected Medical Attention
Sickness and injuries do not always give advance notice. With a health insurance policy in place it is comforting to know that you can have access to good quality medical care when you fall ill unexpectedly, or when you’re injured in an accident and require urgent medical attention. Especially if this happens at a time when you’re not financially buoyant or in a position to be able to pay your hospital bill from your pocket.
#2: You Have Access To Better Quality Health Service
With a health insurance policy in place, you are exposed to a wide range of options of care providers (medical facilities) to choose from. You can decide to choose an upscale provider (depending on your particular plan) which you might ordinarily not be able to afford on a pay-as-you-go basis.
#3: It Helps In Your Personal Financial Planning
Your personal financial planning is made much easier when you are able to budget in advance for (at least a significant portion) of your healthcare expenditure. Health insurance gives you this advantage.
#4: It Is Cheaper For You On The Long Run
A health insurance policy tends to be aggregately cheaper than a pay-as-you-go arrangement, especially when you have a tendency to fall ill often, as might sometimes happen. A one-off premium payment covers you for the full period of the policy. You also have an opportunity to choose a plan to cover more serious medical procedures like minor surgeries and caesarian sections, which would otherwise be very expensive if you had to pay for them from your pocket.
#5: You Can Present It As A Gift Or Employee Benefit
For employers of labour, health insurance is one of the most valuable employee benefits you can give to your employees. It does a great deal for employee moral when they know that the burden of healthcare costs is off their family budgets.
You can also purchase a health insurance policy and present as a gift to your friends, parents and other loved ones. That’s certainly something to think about!
6#: It Will Help Develop The Health And Medical Sector
As the demand for health insurance grows and more people get signed up, this will stimulate growth for the health sector in general as investors and medical entrepreneurs will be encouraged to build more hospitals, health facilities and diagnostic centres, more doctors and medical workers will need to be trained. Not only will the standard and quality of medical services for the citizens improve, it will become more accessible to many more people.
#7: it Allows Equitable Distribution of Health Costs Across Different Income Groups
Health insurance serves as one of the ways of re-distributing wealth within the society. It helps in reducing the gap in the quality of life between the rich and the poor, because it enables the poor to also have access to a reasonably good and affordable quality of healthcare.
A good, effective and affordable health insurance system helps the society to move closer to universal access to healthcare, which is one of the ways to aggregately raise the quality of life of the citizens irrespective of their income group.
If you do not already have a health insurance policy, what are you waiting for?
