just shows that some people cant even be bothered to read the title of the thread they post in

rakyat,

sorry but it's simply not true that you should use health cover as a rider. actually quire the opposite is closer to the truth. also you do not lock in premiums. we have discussed this en length in the respective thread. it's virtually impossible to get a better deal from a profit oriented company if you proceed as suggested simply because the uncertainty has to be accounted for by means of higher premiums that will with certaintainty cover for the uncertain rises in health costs. logic dictates that a year to year adjusted rate will always be able to undercut a 60year commitment rate simply because risk assesment is undertaken and this risk is not born by any self-respecting insurance company. life is life and health is health. one should never combine them unless its absolutely required for completely unrelated reasons (cannot insure anymore without exclusions and/or loading etc..)

well as i said - even if your premium for the medical rider is indeed fixed, it will reflect the worstcase scenary for the insurer plus a margin to account for errors and inflation. you simply cannot get a better deal than one that is competively adjusted as needed. that is why general insurance health plans will always be cheaper.

as far as i know most policies allow for some sort of adjustment for medical riders. CI is usually fixed premium for life insurance depending on entry age and floating by age band for general insurance.

rakyat,

no surprise about the increase. this is the case one way or the other (high fixed premium or age band) with life as well. the average premium you pay will always be higher with such a life policy and there really is no exeption besides bad management - simply because it's impossible for the life insurance to accurately predict the future. their guess has to be an "overcharge" - and the longer the period you insure the higher this overcharge will be. there simply is no other way for them to do this business.

most medical riders do have either an adjustment (usually they try to absorb it in ILP or through the savings part so you dont visibly see it but this wont work in all cases either). and even if you have a fixed rate as for example PRU health you will be able to see that their annual premium is significantly higher than a GI cover of roughly the same scope - and i am not talking about todays premium but the average annual premum for the maximum possible tenure that you face.

also bear in mind that life locks you in. you pay high today so tomorrows premium is not sooo high (and the insurance can invest this money too!) - if you decide to switch, you paid high premiums for nothing cause you dont get the cover in the future.

this is my personal view only: i would only buy a _medical insurance_ from a big international company who has experience in medical insurance. i would personally not choose a local health cover as my "main" h&s plan. this resentiment might be unfounded but it does allow me to sleep better at night - the international companies usually have more experience, can bundle claims handling by region and as such are usually (not always!) experiecing lower costs, better risk assesment and last but not least can spread the risk across a larger number of people in some degree - yes this is not really the case but to some degree they use the leverage. for example AXA has all H&S issues handled for SEA by a single centre. also the SCO policy is offered across SEA (hongkong, singapure, malaysia etc.) so they can get some leverage there.