Hi. I have takaful pru medical card and company mediexpress. Do i really need to have these two or just cancel the pru. Need advice. Thanks..

It maybe simple and may complicated to answer how much is enough. It really base on each individual. Some may need RM10mil, some may just need RM100k. But as Steve Jobs, RM10mil is still not enough.

It may calculate by the individual

1) Debt
2) Business contingency plan
2) House loan
3) Car loan
4) Commitment of parents, children & spouse
5) Education plan for children
6) Daily Expenses for dependent

We rather more then just enough with no spare.

Nowadays especially when age is growing older... the whole life insurance premium is super expensive a lot of peoples are going to those investment linked insurance.. what is the cons of having big sum insured with cheaper premium ?

Hello all Insurance Sifu,

I'm glad that we have honest and upfront Sifu sharing all the great knowledge and in-depth Product Information.

Sifu roystevenung, does Prudential has No Claim Bonus/Benefit for ILP+MedicalCard?

Also, what do you and others think about having two separate Policy?
One focus on ILP+Medical with Premium payable until old age. While Second on Life+CI, on Terms Insurance.

medical card will fee will increase again

Cons of big sum insured with cheaper premium?

I believe you refer to the ILP. In that case, you squeezing every drop of it, mean it will die very very fast. Very soon you need to top up the premium.

Eventually, if you dump in a big sum for few years, it will sustain itself without the need to paying again.

Yes, the plan is called PRUhealth medical rider that is attached to an Investment Linked Policy (ILP).

It is rather common to have a marriage of ILP+medical with Term insurance, be it from the same insurance company or with different insurance company (for risk diversification).

The main reason why nowadays people prefer to attached the medical rider to an ILP is because in general most of the stand alone term policy only provides cover till age 70.

With the ILP you are able to plan ahead and get covered till age 90 or even 100 (if you can afford to pay the premium).

Another reason is ILP has the ability to attach rider that waives the premium payment so as not having to worry the policy may lapse if say the person has stroke and is not able to work.

As for the Life/CI, since it is more towards income replacement, you may choose to only get covered till age 60 and terminate the plan. I may get flamed from agents but what else is new

Well, unless you get married late/adopt a kid late and at age 60, your youngest is still small (another reason to get married and have kids earlier ).

After 60, you may want to swing that premium to the medical card.

First off, is there a reason to have huge sum insured, especially at older age? Life/CI is meant for income replacement during our working career while we work towards our retirement.

Upon retired, most of us working people will lose the medical benefit and had to rely on their own personal medical card.

Big sum insured with cheaper premium at older age does not exists in insurance context since insurance goes up by age based on the mortality rate.

SoS?

http://www.imoney.my/articles/malaysia-sha...surance-premium

https://my.news.yahoo.com/rising-medical-co...-024815009.html

Irrespective of whether the medical card is PruBSN Takaful or from any other insurer, you should not cancel it because the moment you change job, you will lose the insurance cover from your company.

Do you know whether your company's mediexpress imposes any kind of limits that you can claim?

If you want to have the best bang for your buck, what you could do is to have a higher deductible or co-insurance to your plan in the event of a claim.

The higher deductible amount or co-insurance can help you to have a lower premium.

However, do remember that in the event that you want to claim from your personal insurance, you need to standby a higher amount.

For deductible, we have RM300, RM3000, RM10,000 deductible.

For co-insurance, 10%, min RM300 up to max RM1K (as inpatient). For outpatient it is 10%, up to a max of RM2K.

Deductible or co-insurance means you agree to absorb part of the bill thus sharing the risk with the insurer. This will definitely bring down the cost of insurance.

Yes it is available, those plan are called investment linked plan which do not have higher bonus compared to whole life insurance plan. Comparing with the same amount of sum insured, I would need to pay double or even triple the premium for a whole life insurance.

Any sample quotes? Maybe post the quote here so that we can analyze it for you

Figuring the number you should insured yourself requires a bit of thought. A rule of thumb suggest you get 5 to 10 times your annual salary. But if you want to be more precise about the number you should get yourself insured, think about how much money your family would need to cover the lack of your income.

Getting a life insurance isn't for everyone especially for one that have no dependent. If you have no parent, no sibling, no spouse and no children. What's the point of getting insurance right? However, most of the time, that's not the case as we will definitely have someone who we care when we are leaving the world.

Shall you are a married person, you need to know how much is your total debts as well as your mortgage so that your family doesn't have to worry about these obligations. If you have a spouse that doesn't work or are incompetent to find a job that could easily replace your position as breadwinner, you should take this into account seriously.

Furthermore, we need to take into account that how long does my partner will able to support the family without you as the source of income. You need to calculate the cost to raise your youngest son to age 18, a term or investment link would probably suits this situation.

Obviously there are other people in your life who are important to you and you may wonder if you should insure them. As a rule, you should only insure people whose death would mean a financial loss to you. The death of a child, while emotionally devastating, does not constitute a financial loss because children cost money to raise. The death of an income-earning spouse, however, does create a situation with both emotional and financial losses. This also goes for any business partners with which you have a financial relationship (for example, shared responsibility for mortgage payments on a co-owned property).

Investment link's insurance charges is designed such a way that the policyholder have to absorb the increasing of insurance charges as age increase whereas Traditional Whole life policy is designed that the insurance charges is fixed throughout the whole term. That is one of the reason Traditional Participant Plan tend to have lower initial protection and higher protection(Surrender value + Basic Sum Assured + Additional Basic Sum Assured) at later year.

As I mentioned in above post, one should only purchase the appropriate amount of protection according to the situation and needs because insurance is not an investment. If your financial planning is
1)I'm young, I pay little and get high coverage because I needed the protection. Shall in the future of retirement age, I will decrease the protection because I have other planning to my second generation. You suits Investment link plan.
2)I'm young , I pay little and get little initial coverage because that is the protection I need. In the future of retirement age, I would like to leave this legacy plan to my second generation or I may surrender the policy and get the money as my retirement fund. You suits Traditional Whole Life Plan.

Nevertheless, if the budget allow, I'd recommend you to get both plan in a moderate budget as it covers front and back.
A few vital questions you have to ask yourself
1)Will your company continue to retain your service shall unexpected event happen to your life? If it's not not then how is your future medical expenses?
2)Do your company's medical card have adequate of limit to cover for major hospitalization? If it's not, then do you have backup fund for it?
3)Do you have enough of backup fund if unexpected event happen before age 40? Are you willing to use the backup fund for such purpose?

Nevertheless, having a personal medical card always come in handy when you needed the most.

I don't suggest to own two policy unless necessary to avoid unnecessary administration charges. In your case, ILP+medical will be more suitable to you shall you do not have adequate of medical protection with you.

I am very much agree to your honest statement to terminate Income Replacement for Life/CI at Retired Age such as 55 or 60.
Because I received my Quote and find out the All Insurance Charges started to Double/Triple between these ages. No longer sustainable to keep these Riders or such High Sum Assured.
Will lose all your cash value very fast and not able to keep the Policy as plan up to age 70.

Actually, what I meant earlier is I am planning to get ILP with MedicalCard.
And an another Life+CI+EarlyCI such as GE Great Ideal Living - A Traditional Insurance with Fully Paid Up option in 10 or 20 Years, and yet Coverage up to 70? Is there such plan? Lol
But as you said, why the need for Income Protection at later age, one should save and prepare him/herself a reasonable Retirement Fund. But just for this discussion, what you think?
I believe such Traditional Insurance does not come cheap. I am not sure the clause and age coverage yet.

I'm sorry, I used wrong description, not Term Insurance. I believe some perceive Term Insurance as Standalone. What I meant is Traditional Insurance with Guaranteed Fully Paid Up Option within 10 or 20 Years.

Hello ExpZero

Thanks you for your reply.
I had received your Proposal (Quote).
The Coverage + Premium are indeed attractive

But as I said above and with roystevenung, they are not sustainable in the long run (after retired age).
Nevertheless, there are Income Protection. We shouldn't need Income Protection after Retired Age, as we are not working anymore and Retirement Fund should kick at this time.

This post has been edited by weirdguy: May 14 2014, 08:55 AM

Hi,

The plan that you need to pay only 20 years but provides a coverage up to age 70?. Insurers are creative, of course they have the plan you mentioned/ or similar. Certain companies do. Higher premium of course, and after the 20th year, you may come across a letter asking you to top up some premium. Do some research with those who bought these type of plans years ago when it was oven hot, typically those aged between early 40s to mid 50s now. Listen to what they say. Ask why they bought, and analyse the features.

Everyone wants a magic, cheapest plan with high coverages over long term. But the money ( cost) has to come from somewhere. Insurance is all about how much you value yourself. How much do we value ourselves today, tomm, 5 years, 15 years, 20 years from now? In today's money (premium), are we willing to allocate say just rm300 to cover myself for the next 30 years?. If the plan is fixed (buy cheap now but coverage amount is X amount), what do I do if I outlive the term of coverage and by then I find myself valuing myself even more? Willing to pay more then at my older age? Insurability is not a problem because I am super healthy then?

So may questions. So many options.

Nothing is free, nothing is cheap and very good. Every product has it's pro and cons. But the best balance amongst so many products in the market today would be the investment -linked. Prudential started this product imore than 15 years ago and competitors scorned, telling their clients that it's no good coupled with false accusations. Then now they too, embrace it. It's affordable, flexible, you upgrade or downgrade it according to your needs, drop riders you think it's no longer of use or upgrade accordingly. Buy a term for some coverage over certain years but understand the features and why do you need a term insurance, or traditional endowment if you want to diversify for savings purposes because of it's guaranteed features.

All types of plans are good if it's matches your needs.

So many gurus and seasoned financial planners/ agents here. None of us here are to cheat you in this open forum. But we need to know what are your thoughts, your dreams and your commitments. Then we can advise accordingly. Just don't be greedy because agents can smell how greedy a prospective client is and mislead one into buying something that the prospective client is emotionally attached to buying even if it does not do the client real good #cheap, attractive returns, pay less cover more etc etc.

Excellent advisors will only recommend the product if they put themselves in the prospects shoes, and buy the product they are recommending.

This post has been edited by ChrisGood: May 14 2014, 01:36 PM

what u mean by "Income Protection" rider?

Yup, I am still paying for that so call pay 10 years and no need to pay plan from the "A" life company.

Its been 20 years now and everytime you inquire, same old grand mother story. Funds did not perform as it should, insurance charges has gone up bla bla bla.

Hello ChrisGood & roystevenung,

You are indeed correct on those experience.
My Mother In-Law also currently face this issue. I just learn about it last few days when we were reviewing my In-Law Family Insurances.
She is of course unhappy. No one will be happy. She was told initially Fully Paid Up Option is available and she only have to pay up to Year 10.
Then at Year 10 or 11, she received a Letter that this Fully Paid Up Option was not available due to Funds Not Performing Well. The letter clearly state the Fully Paid Option was NOT GUARANTEE, before mentioning that. Well, Well, Well. Luckily my In-Law bought very minimal premium. She is thinking of giving up by this year.

Other than this, I also hear many similarities.
I always thought those are Investment-Linked Insurance, until now. Really now, I mean.
Because of this, I have always try to study the T&Cs behind. Not just insurance, also include Product & Services. As you said, which I also always told myself, nothing is free this world. There must be some setback somewhere.

I wonder why those Agents so cold blooded.
I also wonder, shall we have able to use Class-Action Suit against the Insurance Company for negligence in improperly train their agent as such problem is wide spread. We could have them enforce the initial promised Fully Paid Option.

Hence, I did write in my previous post, that I am hoping to learn - a GUARANTEED Fully Paid Up 10 or 20 Years Traditional Insurance with Life + CI.

Just so you guys know, I did being offered by AIA - US$ 8 Guarantee for Life + CI.
The policy did clearly indicate 8 Years Payment only, and coverage until my Age 101.
But the Premium is super gila USD10K @ USD735 Annually.

This post has been edited by weirdguy: May 14 2014, 09:56 PM

why u buy US insurance?

u at US?

I was being offered.
No, I don't stay in the States and never been to States. Though I hope I could live there for some time, just to experience

The reason I was being offered is I am personally interested to get different currency of some sort of Financial Products, as way to fight off Inflation as well as Currency Devalue. Hence, I got such offer.

It may not be the best, but nevertheless, it was an indeed a special offer. I think some other Insurance Company do offer Foreign-Currency Policy once in a while.