Factors that you can consider:

1. What would be the family size ?

2. What kind of cover are you looking for ? There are policies where in there is no capping on treatment charges, no capping on room rent on the one hand and there are policies where in there is restriction on treatment costs and room rent. These have impact on premium.

3. Are you residing in a metro city - Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad or Hyderabad ? Or in any other city? There are policies where the premium can be different if you decide that you will take treatment, in the unlikely event of hospitalization, in a Tier II city rather than a metro.

4. All Health Insurance policies cover major expenses associated with Hospitialization expenses such as Room Expenses, Surgery, Nurse, Anesthesia, Operation Theatre charges, IUC charges and like.

5. And then Insurers, to differentiate themselves, give add ons - such as yearly Medical check up to a check up every 4 years, 2nd opinion for major surgeries / critical illnesses through their Hosptial Network and like.

6. You need to decide whether you want a family floater policy or a individual sum insured for each family members. Both have advantages and disadvantages.

7. Where there are big time age differences between seniors in the family and the rest the floater policy can work out to be expensive. This is because, in a floater policy, the eldest person’s age is considered to arrive at the premium and can impact the premium for the family as a whole. Hence policy for seniors should be separate

8. Advantage is that a single policy covers everyone with a single sum insured and can attract a relatively lower premium. Demerit is that one might end up selecting a low sum insured.

9. On the other hand, there are policies that, in a single policy, cover each family member with Individual sum insured. Advantage of this policy is that for relatively higher premium the family is covered for a much larger sum insured but with the advantage of a single policy.

10 .Every policy has a Waiting period of 3 types:First 30 days hospitalization on account of disease / illness will not be covered.Specific medical conditions will not be covered for the 1st 2 years. Pre Existing illnesses will not be covered for the first 2 to 4 years (period depends on Insurers)