What Is Hospital Indemnity Insurance?
Hospital Indemnity Insurance (HI) provides cash benefits for each day an employee is confined in a hospital for a covered illness or injury. Insureds can use these benefits to help safeguard against the expenses that medical insurance may not cover like co-pays, deductibles, or any other living expense that may arise. Designed to help employers fill in the financial gaps left by most of today’s high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), Hospital Indemnity Insurance can be a meaningful addition to any employee benefits offering.
Why Employees May Need Hospital Indemnity Insurance
Hospital Indemnity Insurance provides employees with cost-efficient financial protection against rising health care costs.
Given that 25% of employers are now only offering high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) to their employees – nearly a 40% increase over 2014 – conscientious employers are seeking ways to continue to provide employees with cost-efficient financial protection against rising health care costs.
Often, Health Savings Accounts (HSA) simply aren’t enough to cover all expenses given how quickly medical bills can add up, even for a one-day hospital stay – and the average cost for a hospital stay is $2,346 per day. In fact, 63% of Americans with medical insurance used all their savings for out-of-pocket medical costs. That’s where our Hospital Indemnity insurance can help.
What Hospital Indemnity Covers
Our guaranteed issue5 HI Insurance from The Hartford provides a competitive range of first day confinement and daily confinement benefit amounts as part of our base plan. The Hartford offers both HSA6 and non-HSA HI plan designs.
A number of optional benefits like coverage for medical related travel expenses, or expenses incurred for family care (adults, children or pets) are also available.
- First Day ICU Confinement (HSA-compatible)
- Family Care Coverage (HSA-compatible) – Travel, lodging, family or pet care
- Other Medical Care Facility Coverage (Non HSA-compatible) – Rehabilitation, hospice or inpatient mental/substance abuse
- Additional Care Coverage (Non HSA-compatible) – Air/ground/water ambulance coverage or outpatient diagnostic exam(s)
- Medical Professional Care Coverage (Non HSA-compatible) – Outpatient therapy, urgent care or home health services
How Flexible is Hospital Indemnity?
With our extensive, flexible coverage options, you can design a plan best suited for your employees by choosing from both HSA-compatible and non HSA-compatible plans.
HI can be layered with other voluntary benefits from The Hartford’s Employee Choice BenefitsSM suite such as Critical Illness (CI) and Accident (AI). There are no offsets applied to HI benefits so in the event of a covered illness or injury, the covered employee’s benefit can be maximized.
Other flexible features include:
- Coverage for illness and injury, or coverage for illness only
- 100% employee-paid, cost sharing and employer-paid funding options available
- Multiple coverage configurations including
- Three tier (Employee only, Employee and Dependent, Family)
- Two tier (Employee only, Family)
- One tier (Employee only)
- Optional riders, including Accidental Death and Dismemberment (AD&D), Critical Illness (CI), Term Life (TL) and Short Term Care (STC)
What Employees Get with Hospital Indemnity Insurance
The Hartford goes beyond simply the insurance benefit and provides built-in value-added services to support an employee’s recovery – at no extra cost to the company or the employee.
- Ability Assist®7 – Provides confidential support for emotional, legal and financial issues
- HealthChampionSM8 – Offers unlimited access to benefit specialists and nurses for administrative and clinical support to address medical care and claims concerns.