US, April 6 -- This happens more often than people expect. Someone buys a health insurance 5 lakh plan, feels sorted, and does not think about it again until a hospitalization actually occurs. Then the bill arrives, and the gap between what the insurance covers and what the hospital is charging becomes very real, very quickly.

Whether five lakhs is enough depends on several things. And understanding those things is really what the importance of health insurance in India conversation should be about. Not just whether you have a policy, but whether the policy you have actually protects you.

What Five Lakhs Actually Covers Today Start with the honest version of this number.

A five lakh health insurance cover is not bad for routine hospit...