How to pay your Health Insurance Premium with Credit Card?
Banks and financial institutions give their customers an option to pay the health insurance premium with their credit cards. The major benefit, for the ones opting it, is that the bank balance does not go down at a time. Regular premiums on health insurance are generally higher compared to what you pay through our credit cards. Wondering how? This is because the user tends to assimilate more number of cash points on the transactions. However, what if you only concentrate on paying premiums through card just to fetch points? You can end up getting into a bad situation if you aren’t vigilant with the use of the credit card.
How paying premiums with credit cards can go wrong
- An automated mode – the user should primarily ensure that the annual reimbursements aren’t set at the ‘automatic-pay’ mode. Most of the insurance companies have this option. Clicking a ‘yes’ could debit the amount from your credit limit every year. Though it is a good way to keep with the payment deadlines, one shouldn’t go for it.
- Non-satisfaction of a health insurance service at one firm lets your switch the same to any other company. Thus, any pre-setting of the premium payments complexes the procedure of changing your health provider. At times, the premiums may be escalated without any notification to the user leading to a substantial deduction in the amount from your credit card. Thus, every credit card firm asks their customers not to share any information with a third person and also avoid an intermediary to pay from your card.
- Additional charges – using a credit card, online or offline, can impose an additional cost over the premium money. The charges differ among insurers and may be a particular share or a regular amount. However, there will surely be a transaction charge. This is charged because the insurance company has to shell out the amount from the card provider consistently. Though the amount seems of be negligible in front of the sum of money you pay, why pay additional charges when you have other options available.
- Missing payment due dates – unlike other payment modes, not meeting the credit card bill payment deadlines can cost you huge. The interest for the amount piles up. A late payment charge, besides, shall also levy. So the amount you pay in addition turns out to be huge than you might think.
Final words
The decision to either buy medical insurance or not ultimately depends on your financial discipline. A punctual and a cautious user will never face issues and might end up saving huge with the extra points. But on the same verge, lack of discipline can put you into debts. Payments modes like cheques or hard cash shall be preferable in these situations.
