Health insurance is not optional — after forty, it is urgent
If I could give every Indian family one piece of financial advice — just one, before anything else — it would not be about SIPs, returns, or asset allocation. It would be this: get adequate health insurance before someone in the family needs it.
Medical inflation in India runs at twelve to fourteen percent annually. A hospitalisation that costs three lakhs today will cost seven to eight lakhs in ten years. A cardiac procedure that costs eight lakhs today will cost close to twenty lakhs by the time a forty-year-old reaches sixty. These are not dramatic projections. They are arithmetic.
The families who are most vulnerable are those in the forty-to-fifty age bracket. Their parents are in their seventies — when medical events become more frequent. Their own health is beginning to show the first signs of lifestyle conditions — borderline sugar, elevated BP, a cholesterol flag. And their children are approaching the expensive years of higher education. The financial pressure comes from three directions at once.
Without adequate health cover, a single hospitalisation can undo years of careful wealth-building. I have seen families redeem SIPs, break FDs, and borrow against property to pay hospital bills — not because they were poor, but because they were underinsured.
The minimum we recommend at Dhansanchay: a base health policy of at least ten lakhs per family member, with a super top-up that takes the effective cover to twenty-five to fifty lakhs. For families with parents above sixty-five, a separate senior citizen policy or a top-up specifically for the parents. And a personal accident cover for the primary earner — because an accident that causes disability is financially more devastating than death, since the earner is alive but unable to earn.
Get the cover while everyone is healthy. Premiums are lowest when you need them least. That is not a coincidence — it is the whole point.
Returns will vary; discipline and documentation age better than tips. We publish these pieces so families can normalise calm, process-led thinking. Your portfolio may need something different — that is what reviews are for. Written for general education — not as individual investment, tax, or legal advice.