With the steep rise in health insurance costs, it is important for every individual to be insured for all medical risks and contingencies. In the health insurance plans, the insurance companies estimate the overall risk involved in healthcare expenses. They, then create a monthly insurance premium and ensure that you will be able to claim your money, according to your policy requirements, whenever a need arises for the same.

There are different types of insurance plans you can select from such as group insurance plans and individual insurance plans.

The group insurance plans provide medical insurance to different groups like company employees, members of an association or a cooperative society and so on. The expenses covered vary across different policies. However, these plans include fee of doctors and hospitalization charges, including both pre and post health care charges.

In a typical group insurance policy, the employer provides all costs associated with the employee's medical coverage. It is important for the employees, however, to find out and check with their employer the coverage and benefits that are available to them. It is also important for you, as an employee covered under a group health insurance plan, to check if the group health insurance policy you are covered under:

- If it allows you to select your own doctors or specialists

- Provides you with enough coverage for your retirement?

- Will your employer pay a portion of my affordable health insurance policy or health insurance supplement?

When selecting the group health insurance plan for your organization, take care of the following factors:

- Select a health care plan only after assessing its total cost, especially in the case if the policy covers an employee with serious health condition

- Select a policy that covers the doctors and health care practitioners that fall under Health Maintenance Organization or HMO. HMO is the oldest form of managed care and provides a list of doctors from which you can choose a primary care doctor.

- Select a policy that provides a Point-of-Service (POS) Plan. In this plan, the members can refer themselves outside the plan and still be covered. In such a plan, almost the entire medical bill is paid by the insurance company, if a referral is made to the network by the doctor.

- It is also important to carefully examine the services offered by an individual plan. This will help you evaluate the type of care or services not covered under the plan.

- It is also equally important that you select a health plan that covers hospitals or healthcare centers, which can be accessed by most employees. The plan should handle care well even if you are away.

The insurance companies often offer group discounts on standard premium in case the group size exceeds a particular number such as 100. Larger the group size, higher is the discount.

Most group insurance policies can provide an additional cover after payment of some extra premium. The extended benefits include maternity benefits, preexisting diseases, and reimbursement of cost of Health Check-Up after some consecutive claim free years.