Before you start

Employer group medical cover, or a private policy bought yourself
Vaccinations appropriate to India — typhoid and hepatitis A as a baseline
A hospital identified near your home before you need one
An indoor air purifier, bought before October

Step-by-step

1
Read the group policy, not the summary slide
Check the sum insured, the daily room-rent sub-limit, disease-specific sub-limits, maternity terms, waiting periods for pre-existing conditions and whether dependants are included. Cover normally ends the day your employment does.
Via employerWho: You and HRFirst month
2
Top up with a super top-up or an international policy
Indian super top-up policies are cheap and lift a thin group ceiling substantially. An international policy costs far more but travels with you and covers treatment outside India, which an Indian policy generally does not.
OnlineWho: You
3
Register at a private hospital and know where PGIMER is
For routine care use the private sector — Fortis Mohali, Max, Alchemist, Healing Touch — and check which are in your insurer's cashless network. For anything genuinely serious, PGIMER in Sector 12 is one of the best hospitals in the country, and knowing how to get there matters more than most things on this list.
In personWho: YouWeek 1–2
4
Buy an air purifier in September, not in November
From late October the stubble-burning season across Punjab and Haryana degrades the air for several weeks. Purifiers and replacement filters sell out and prices rise once it is in the news. Size it for the bedroom at minimum and keep spare filters.
OnlineWho: YouBy September
5
Take mosquito precautions through and after the monsoon
Dengue rises across north India from July through October, and the aedes mosquito bites during the day, so evening repellent alone is not enough. Repellent, window screens and clearing standing water on balconies are all effective.
In personWho: You
6
Know the emergency drill before an emergency
112 is the national number and 108 the free ambulance service, and both work across the tricity. For a planned admission at a network hospital, ask the insurance desk for cashless pre-authorisation; off network you pay and claim back, and insurers typically require notification within twenty-four hours of admission.
In personWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Insurance policy document and TPA cashless card
Passport and visa, required at admission
Vaccination records and a list of regular medications by generic name
Proof of address

Things most newcomers don’t know

PGIMER is the single strongest health argument for living in this city.

The Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research is consistently ranked among India's top two or three hospitals and is the tertiary referral destination for Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and beyond. For a city of roughly a million people to have that inside its boundary is anomalous. In practice it means cardiac, neurosurgical, oncology and transplant care is a fifteen-minute drive rather than a flight — which is not true of most Indian cities several times this size.

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

The autumn smoke is short, predictable and worse than the city's reputation implies.

Chandigarh is genuinely one of India's greener and cleaner large cities for most of the year — and then, for several weeks from late October, it sits downwind of post-harvest paddy-stubble burning across two of India's biggest agricultural states, and the readings climb steeply. It is not Delhi's four-month season, but people who chose Chandigarh partly for the air are consistently caught out by their first November. Buy the purifier in September.

Source: Central Pollution Control Board — air quality

Room-rent sub-limits quietly shrink Indian claims across the whole bill.

Many group policies cap the daily room rent they will meet. Take a room above the cap and the insurer proportionately reduces every other line in the bill — surgeon's fees, tests, consumables — not just the room. A policy you believed covered you can leave a large residual.

Source: IRDAI — policyholder information

Foreign nationals are outside every Indian public health scheme.

PM-JAY, ESIC and CGHS are all closed to foreign nationals, so there is no residual public entitlement to fall back on. A gap between two employers is a genuine exposure rather than a paperwork inconvenience — bridge it with a personal policy before you resign, not after.

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

Common mistakes to avoid

Assuming a public safety net exists for foreign nationals — none does.
Reading the sum insured and skipping the room-rent sub-limit.
Waiting until November to buy an air purifier.
Using PGIMER's outpatient department for routine care and concluding the system is slow.
Letting cover lapse between jobs.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.