Till some time back, health insurance policies used to cover only allopathy treatment while ayurveda, homeopathy, naturopathy and unani treatments were left out. Despite having a comprehensive health insurance plan in place, individuals who preferred such systems had to pay out of their own pockets.

These policyholders can now breathe easy as some insurance firms have started including such alternative forms of treatment under their cover, especially ayurveda. “Ayurveda being the most prevalent of the alternative systems, we have designed a product to cover treatments under ayurvedic hospitalization,” says S S Gopalarathnam, managing director, Cholamandalam MS General Insurance. While some insurers only offer it under their group policies, others have started offering the facility to individuals.

• New India Assurance and Star Health and Allied Insurance have started covering ayurvedic treatments under individual policies.
  
•  ICICI Lombard General Insurance covers it under government scheme and
  
• Future Generali Insurance offers it to corporate group insurance buyers.
  

Some insurance firms have found that for chronic ailments like spondilytis, arthritis and epilepsy, many people preferred alternate streams of treatment such as ayurveda, siddha and homeopathy.

1. New India Assurance’s extends cover to individuals undergoing treatment with the help of Ayurvedic, homeopathic and Unani systems of medicine only to the extent of 25% of sum insured if they availed treatment at a government hospital to be eligible for the claim
   
2. Star Health also covers non-allopathic treatment, except Naturopathy, costs under its Unique Health Insurance Policy, up to 25% of sum assured or a maximum of Rs 25,000 per occurrence, per year.
   
3. Chola Individual Health line Insurance policy provides coverage for ayurveda during hospitalization, prior and post hospitalization. A policy holder can get treated in any of the government registered ayurveda hospitals across the country and claim if hospitalized for more than 24 hours.

 Naturopathy treatments are excluded in all policies, while few cover unani and homeopathic. This is because other forms of treatments have no standard treatment protocols and highly varied costs thus making it difficult to actuarially compute the cost to be covered.

Even under ayurveda, select procedures are covered to ensure people do not misuse a policy for a basic rejuvenation procedure. Under ayurveda, hospitalization for panchkarma (five actions) meant to purify the whole body by eliminating accumulated toxins, is covered on a case to case basis.

It is important to note that there is no standalone cover available for covering alternative treatments. You will have to buy a standard health insurance cover from these select insurers and others who start offering the non-allopathic coverage.

Before you head for alternative treatment and make a claim, see whether the treatment is listed in the insurance policy document