Co-Payment (Co-Pay)
✓ Last verified 14 Sep 2026
The short version
Co-payment is a fixed percentage of every claim that you pay yourself, with the insurer covering the rest - common in senior citizen and some employer-provided policies, and worth knowing before a hospital bill arrives, not after.
A 20% co-pay on a ₹5 lakh hospital bill means paying ₹1 lakh yourself, with the insurer covering the remaining ₹4 lakh. Co-pay clauses are especially common in senior citizen health policies - see our article on health insurance for aging parents - and in some employer group policies. It's a term worth checking specifically before purchase, since it directly determines your real out-of-pocket exposure on an otherwise "covered" claim.
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