With the rising cost of health cover, insurance companies are looking at innovative products to attract customers. The latest offering is top-up insurance that comes at almost half the premium.

Any employee who wants medical insurance of more than what is provided by his employer's group cover can go for top-up premium. If the cost of hospitalisation exceeds the limit provided by the employer, the insurance company will pay the extra amount.

An individual too can ramp up his medical insurance cover (from Rs 200,000 to Rs 500,000, for instance) by going for a top-up. The cost of the additional cover would be less than what a new policy of the same amount would cost.

At present, United India Insurance and Star Health and Allied Insurance are offering this product. Others like ICICI [Get Quote] Lombard will enter this market in February.

United India Insurance chairman and managing director G Srinivasan said: "Our policy targets those who want a higher sum assured than what they can pay or is available to them from their employers."

INNOVATIVE HEALTH COVER                                            (All figures in Rs)
Existing insurance (sum Insured)	Premium under health policy	Top-up insurance (sum insured)	Premium fortop-up
2,00,000	2,469	3,00,000	1,700
2,00,000	2,469	5,00,000	2,300
3,00,000	3,444	3,00,000	1,400
3,00,000	3,444	7,00,000	2,500
5,00,000	5,151	10,00,000	2,900
5,00,000	5,151	15,00,000	4,100

For United India Insurance, the policies are available in top-up and super top-up varieties.  A policy with a threshold cover of Rs 200,000 can get an additional top-up of between Rs 200,000 and Rs 15 lakh (Rs 1.5 million). Similarly, Star Health is offering this product for a threshold cover of Rs 300,000.

In fact, this insurance cover is also available if the policyholder has cover from some other insurance company. Since there is no contribution clause, if a policyholder has health policies from two insurers, each insurer will pay its part of the claim.

Star Health and Allied Insurance regional manager (West) RS Nayak said: "We expect this to be a very profitable business as the average claim for health insurance is quite low in India."