Hassle-Free Health Coverage: Limited Health Contracts

There are a variety of special health insurance policies providing limited coverage.

To ensure that you have sufficient notice that your coverage is limited, your policy, by law, should state plainly that it is a limited policy.

Travel accident insurance provides coverage for death or injury resulting from accidents occurring while the insured is a fare-paying passenger on a common carrier.

Specified disease or dread disease insurance provides a variety of benefits for only certain diseases, usually cancer or heart disease. This coverage is especially important for people with a history of a particular illness-because this is how they can insure against other problems. For example, a person who has survived cancer may have trouble finding standard health coverage but may be able to get coverage for heart trouble.

Hospital income insurance pays a specified sum on a daily, weekly or monthly basis while the insured is confined to a hospital. The amount of the benefit is not related to expenses incurred or to wages lost while the insured is hospitalized.

Accident only insurance provides coverage for injury from accident-but excludes sickness. Benefits may be paid for all or any of the following: death, disability, dismemberment or hospital expenses.

Blanket insurance is a form of group coverage. Often the individual's name is not known because the individuals come and go. These groups include students, campers, passengers of a common carrier, volunteer groups, and sports teams. Unlike group insurance the individuals are automatically covered under the blanket policy, and they do not receive certificates of insurance.