Group Insurance

Group Insurance plans cover a group of people under a single insurance policy. These plans can be bought by organizations for providing cover to their members. The members covered under the single insurance policy are collectively referred to as a ‘Group’.

Group insurance provides supplemental coverage to better ensure the physical, mental, and financial health of insured members and their families. Knowing they can benefit from such coverage is reassuring for both employers and employees

Need for Group Insurance

Group Health Insurance provides healthcare coverage to a group of people belonging to a common community (typically as employees of a company). These plans are generally uniform in nature, offering the same benefits to all employees or members of the group. However, it can be customized to offer benefits by designation and profile of employees. Most professionally run companies today provide Group Health Insurance as a part of their Employee Welfare program. Each company, however, gets the plan customized based on the employee demographics. In the process though those at lower profiles will not be able to manage medical expenses as well as their senior colleagues. Their only option in such circumstances is the group health insurance extended to them by their employee.

While there are various objectives of group insurance, they cover the following basic functions:

A basic sum insured is set out in a floater or individual mode to cover expenses arising from hospitalisation.

  1. Term insurance The sum assured is paid out to family members of the deceased in case of death over the employment tenure with the company.
  2. Annuity Superannuation schemes of group insurance policies provide for retirement plans that can be availed of by employee’s post-retirement, at existing NAV (group insurance), as pension.
  3. Gratuity On completing five years of service an employee becomes eligible for gratuity subject to relevant laws. Group insurance provides investment options to the organization to create a corpus for gratuity.
  4. Savings It mobilizes savings of participating members which can meet long-term financial goals like child’s education or marriage.
  5. Covering Liability It can provide for outstanding dues or loans (like home loans) of participating members on death or disability.
  6. Group Travel Whether it is a leisure or business travel, travelling has become an important part of our life. The fact is, travelling in India or abroad comes with its share of risks and responsibilities, a group travel insurance policy plays a crucial role by covering people who are travelling internationally.