Health insurance is one of those purchases you make for peace of mind, and Section 80D quietly rewards you for it at tax time. It is also the deduction with the most generous family angle in the whole Act.
The limits, simply
- ✓Rs 25,000 a year for premiums covering you, your spouse and children
- ✓Another Rs 25,000 for your parents' premiums
- ✓That parent limit rises to Rs 50,000 if either parent is 60 or older
- ✓Within these limits, up to Rs 5,000 for preventive health checkups
So a family paying for senior citizen parents can claim up to Rs 75,000 a year. If a senior citizen has no insurance at all, actual medical expenses up to Rs 50,000 can be claimed instead.
The fine print people miss
Premiums must be paid by any mode other than cash (checkup fees can be cash). The policy payer gets the deduction, so if you pay for your parents' policy, the claim is yours. And like most deductions, 80D belongs to the old regime only, so run the regime comparison before assuming it saves you money.
Claiming it right
Keep the premium receipt and policy document. On Saathi.Tax, our AI often spots your insurance payment sitting in your bank statement and suggests the 80D entry before you even remember it, which is exactly the kind of forgetfulness that used to cost people thousands.
