Life/Critical Illness(non indemnity type) protection would be able to protect you worldwide 24/7. I'd advise if you have bought Life/Critical Illness protection, it is always wiser to continue it even you are now oversea because the protection is still intact. However, if your policy is health insurance, you may have your own option to buy a medical card at your current country as it will be easier to claim especially "cash-less" admission.

Can, but there will still be GST pro-rated basis, basically it doesn't really matter you pay before or after. For Standalone medical card, let's say your premium is RM1200/year and you pay by March, GST will be 11/12 x RM1,200 x 6% .

Yes, there are a few kind of "promotion".
1)Some endowment plan are only selling in short term period or up to a certain budgeted premium allowed by BNM. After that, the product will have to withdraw from market forever.
2)Company will send voucher to certain client as "promotion" and client may use this voucher for discount when buy new policy, the voucher is only valid for like 2 months.
3)This is not company promotion but more like agent promotion, sometimes when we hit certain target, we can have cash incentive from few hundred to few thousand. So in order to hit the target, agent might as well cash back to client and it's actually a win-win situation. This is also limited time as the agent have to hit the target before the end of contest period.

You are right, and Great Ideal Living is withdrawing from market on 15/3/2015, this could be one of the "promotion" marketing skill use by agent.

For 3), previously we have launched a limited period insurance plan without checkup and it can be bought by whoever no matter what's the existing illness. It should be selling from Oct to Dec but it is out of shelve by 15 November because we have reached the quota given by Bank Negara Malaysia.

Yeap, you are right, the number one is more like product exist in certain period. However, the usage of promotion is not limited to price cutting for a specific time but special/additional feature for a specific time is also applicable. Usually this product will have some special feature such as no medical requirement needed, special short tenure of endowment etc etc....

Gift is allowed, Great Eastern every year is giving out some gold souvenir for agent to be distributed to client as a gesture of appreciation. Well, I'm not sure whether there is agent practising cash back, I were just giving a rough example.

From your post, I'd say endowment is totally out of picture. Due to the fact that there are still a few children under his support, he may opt for term/whole life life insurance policy to cover for 2 benefits.
1)To support for children education and living expenses and not burden the elder brother and sister
2)Treat it as a gift(hibah) to whoever your dad would like when Faraid kicks in.

To know more about faraid, I have google search and found a website that quite good in explaining it.

If you are buying Investment linked, it is chargeable on your cash value.
If you are buying Standalone medical card, Company will pro-rate it and charge you on next due date.

Hi,

I'm not sure how each of the insurance company works but if you are with Great Eastern, GE will send a sms to you and your agent to notify you shall your first credit card transaction failed, GE will re-attempt on about 5 days later. Shall the second attempt also failed, GE will send an official letter to your house. However, on normal practice, the agent will notify the client when receive the first SMS because this is rare as clients aren't changing credit card every few months.

It's very subjective because it is very depend on your personal financial management. A few questions to ask yourself
1)What's your financial planning for your family member(Wife, children, parent) shall you pass away? Do you leave enough of asset/cash flow for them?
2)Do your family member able to take care of themselves without your support?
3)Would you want to leave this property to them as a gift shall you pass away?

If the answer is Yes, Yes, No, then you wouldn't need any insurance. If the answer is the other way round, you will need to sit down and start to plan your financial management and get enough of life protection to avoid all this hassle to your family member shall pre-mature death happen to you.

*MLTA 30 years protection, age 30 years old, male, non-smoker for RM500,000 only RM200/month for 20 years*

There is no right or wrong, it is whether you are willing to take the risk. Two options are available.
Get insurance when I'm out of job/retire
Pro: Extra RM200/month as saving
Con: Bear the risk if strike with 36 Critical Illness or serious accident, the company might not want to continue your service with them and thus you might lose your medical protection and job altogether. Furthermore, you might lose the chance to buy insurance when you are age 50+ as diagnose with mild illnesses might get your proposal declined when you are applying at age of 50+.

Get insurance now
Pro: No headache about medical insurance and go all out to fight for your job.
Con: Pay RM200/month for insurance. You might work too hard for your job and lose your health too

However, chance to get illnesses like 36 Critical Illness before age 50 is like one in a thousand, so you have to juggle the risk of future medical fee and extra RM200/month pocket money.

Smart Medic Xtra is the basic medical card, it works like all the normal medical card.
Smart Extender is actually a deductible rider medical plan.

Let me give you some simple illustration:
Let's say Mr. A have bought Smart Medix Xtra R&B150 and Smart Extender 90k for RM180/month.
Smart Medic Xtra R&B150 having annual limit RM90,000 and Smart Extender 90k is having deductible RM90,000 and annual limit of RM900,000.
If on a single year MR.A has hospitalize with the bill of RM500,000, Smart Medic Xtra will pay RM90,000 and the leftover RM410,000 will be paid by Smart Extender.

Do I have to pay the cash of RM410,000 and claim back later?
No, it will directly paid by Great Eastern to hospital, as a end user, you do not really need to know how the Smart Extender and Smart Medic Xtra works together, you just have to know that you are get covered by annual limit RM990,000 and any bill lesser than this amount will be paid by Great Eastern cashless directly to hospital.

Every new case that submitted to the company are going to undergo underwriting, which means that if she isn't healthy at the age of 60 and she is applying medical card at age 60, her proposal might get rejected.

If she already bought the medical card at age 30, her medical card is still use-able at the age of 60 and beyond regardless of her health condition between age 30-60 provided the medical card is guaranteed renewable.

*Normally most of the medical card from life insurance company nowadays is guaranteed renewable*

You may engage a general insurance agent to give you a quotation for that. I don't concentrate in general insurance and as far as I know, it's depend on your office's theft, fire-fighting security etc

I do not have a sample policy with me now, the T&C are in the policy contract. Conditionally renewable do happen even in Great Eastern for policy bought before 2000. After year 2000, all the medical cards are Guaranteed Renewable. I've checked AIA, Prudential and Allianz medical cards T&C, these companies are also Guaranteed Renewable although I'm not sure since when they have changed to Guaranteed Renewable.

Life insurance policies is claimable from all the policies that you have bought.

Get the original Death Certificate and photocopy Death Certificate and get certified by the following.
• Claims / Branch Officer
• Commissioner for Oaths
• Notary Public
• Advocate & Solicitor
• Justice of Peace
• Member of Parliament
• Ketua Balai Polis
• Penghulu
• District Officer

Use the photocopy certified DC to claim from multiple insurance company. I'd advise to get certify by Commissioner for Oaths as it is easily reach everywhere.

TPD claim is different from Medical claim, They are from the different portion.
Like from your example that you have bought Life protection for RM50,000 and Smart Medix Xtra and Smart Extender. Upon hospitalization, it is payable up to RM990,000 from your medical card. Upon Death or TPD, the company will then compensate your family RM50,000 from your policy.

In short, Life/TPD/36Critical Illness are payable upon the person diagnose with the respective illness and it is compensated to you by a lump sum amount. Whereas, medical card is payable to hospital's bill on reimbursement basis.

Rest assured that your medical card will not be terminated based on individual claim history or age.

1)Medical card is having a medical pool risk sharing fund, which means that everyone put a cut into the center and when someone need claim, he will then take the money from the center and pay for his medical bill. When the money at the center is depleted, insurance company will call for an increasing of Cost of Insurance(Insurance Charges). That's the reason why insurance chargers of medical card might increase based on the claim experience.

A good underwriting guideline will ensure the medical pool fund is share among the healthy people and non-healthy people will not get into the pool or are required to pay a hefty increase of premium in order to join the party.

Want to know which company have the better underwriting guideline? View back the history of the company of increasing Insurance Chargers of their medical card for the past 20 years. The statistic although is not readily available for the public but it can be searched via some keyword in google like "xxxx increase price" or "xxx premium hike" etc. Find it out yourself.

In short: You are getting what you are paying for, the benefit will not be reduce but the insurance chargers might increase with the claim experience from the pool fund.

2) As per Adele123 said, this is a heavily regulated industry, insurance company can't simply reject a claim without proof as the insurance company would need to explain to the regulation body. Do you know that rejecting a claim larger than 20k need the approval from COO, the SVP of the company? It's a very tedious process to reject a claim.

3)I wouldn't say that Prudential is not good, it is common in the industry to reject GL when the medical card is still new for investigation of non-disclosure shall the illness is commonly known to exist longer than the policy inception date. However, rejection of GL is not equal to rejection claim. If GL is rejected, policyholder can always submit a reimbursement and the company will investigate for the claim, shall the company can't provide any proof of non-disclosure, the insurance company have to pay for the claim. Policyholder is innocent until he is proven otherwise.

Good explanation

The cost of insurance vs the worthiness of getting the extender is based on individual, basically it is about 10-20% of the COI from the medical card COI that you are getting.

I believe you understand that the extra 6% that you are paying is for government instead of the company itself, this works the same for all the GST implementation in other sectors

The calculation of GST in life insurance plan is not on the premium you paid but on the cost of each riders since "Life" is exempted from GST. Thus, this is not affecting on the premium you paid but rather on the riders you are purchasing.

Want to know how much you paid for your GST on your premium? As a thumb of rule, look at the certificate for tax relief, find the number that you are eligible for "medical" and times 6%. This is not the exact number of it but it is around there, the GST will directly deduct from your cash value.

For traditional plan without cash value, since it is not possible to deduct from your cash value, there will be direct increase of premium 6%.

To answer your question, it is depend on your policy's medical and 36 Critical Illness riders Cost of Insurance, not related to the premium you are paying.

Hospitalization for illnesses that is purely for investigation without treatment or hospitalization that is not medically required for hospitalization will not entitle for the claim, the purpose of this is to avoid mis-used of medical card.

However, if the clinic doctor actually wrote a letter to refer him to hospitalization and the hospital doctor also justify the needs to hospitalization, it shouldn't be a problem to appeal for the claim. I've once help a client of mine for the same case as your client and successfully appeal for fully paid out.

However, different company may have different policy of medical claim.

Hi,

I'm an experience Great Eastern agent and were an ex-staff who works in Great Eastern too.

Regarding the Portfolio Withdrawal policy, company do not have the right to cancel your policy individual basis but rather on the portfolio withdrawal. Which means that whatever health condition occur to you after you have bought the medical card, the company have to cover you as long as the company have to maintain the portfolio.

Please refer to the attached brochure : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9609565...20%2B%20SME.pdf

Page 3, Question number 3, "􀂏or if the Company withdraws this rider completely from the market," clearly stated that the company unable to cancel your policy on individual basis but rather this has to be done for the whole portfolio. Some agents might unable to understand the sentence correctly and may accidentally interpreted wrongly. To understand more about this please call Great Eastern official Customer Service at 03-42598888.

You may also refer to Allianz's brochure at https://www.allianz.com.my/web//ctb/10098/10014# , click "Find out more" and click the first link. Page 4, Importance Notice, Point number 5.

Although Great Eastern is having the exactly same clause but is this means Allianz going to withdraw your medical card when you are ill? I wouldn't be the bad guy to badmouth other company. Allianz won't do that on individual basis, so you also do not have to worry about it. But all the insurance company reserving the right to alter the benefit on portfolio basis but not individual basis.

However, for all the insurance companies, there is a clause that the insurance chargers are not guaranteed. Which means that if today you have bought the medical card for RM200/month for any company either Great Eastern, Prudential, AIA, Allianz and so on, shall the company want to withdraw the portfolio and yet they do not have the clause as above, they could also reserved their right to increase the pricing to double or triple until you surrender the policy due to the price is too ridiculous. Of course, this need approval from Bank Negara Malaysia as well.

Summary: All of the insurance companies are having the same clause of revising benefit, premium and cost of insurance. However, most of the Giant life insurance company in Malaysia like Great Eastern, Prudential and AIA are having guaranteed renewable clause. Which means that whatever happen to you, the company are not able to alter or cancel your policy on individual basis as long as you are paying the premium.

To answer your question about the Great Eastern deductible, do not worry about how you use your medical card in a year, as long as on policy year and your claim is less than RM1,320,000, you can fully claim from your annual limit.

Example:
January Claim 90k (from Smart Medic Xtra)
July Claim 200k, 30k will be from Smart Medic Xtra and 170k will be from Smart Extender.

Furthermore, the advantages of having Great Eastern medical card is, we do not practise co-insurance or any penalty on client's total bill even room&board is over what you have bought, you only have to top up the difference. There won't be any bill shock

Last but not least, the insurance chargers in Great Eastern is comparably low among all the insurance companies. You may compare yourself the benefit vs the cost of insurance. In my opinion, Male/35 years old/Non Smoker and the cost of insurance is only RM537/year, will it be too much? It's really up to your own interpretation but if you are able to find something cheaper with better benefit, do share it here.



This post has been edited by ExpZero: Apr 20 2015, 04:50 PM

Instead of use the word "I heard", we should always check our own company brochure in detail or check the Product Disclosure Sheet.

Click on the link provided above, Click "find out more Power link", click "Enhanced MediCover - Hospitalization and Surgical benefit (Click here to find out more)"

Look at the PDF 1st page, 2nd row from the left.

Do not blame your company for that. Do not worry, all the company have this clause as well and Allianz is not the only superior one, all insurance company are same. Just that the benefit and Cost of Insurance are different.

Hospital are able recognize your medical protection by your IC number only. However, keeping your medical card in your wallet will ease to the public to know either you are covered by insurance shall you unconscious. Thus, it is still advisable to have one in your wallet.

There are a plenty of the insurance companies providing lifetime unlimited limit including Great Eastern, AIA and Prudential etc, but there is no point to get it because the main point in taking medical insurance is annual limit. Giving you unlimited lifetime limit with very limited annual limit basically mean that I'm putting a billion in your bank account but you are only allowed to withdraw RM10,000 per year.

Besides annual limit, co-insurance and deductible is another main point in selecting your choice of medical card. Co-insurance is a type of insurance in which the you pay a share of the payment made against a claim. Example: co-insurance 10% for a hospital bill of RM10,000 means you have to pay 10% out of the RM10,000, which is RM1,000. Sometimes, there is a capping on co-insurance. Deductible is a specified amount of money that the you must pay before an insurance company will pay a claim. Example: deductible RM300 mean that you have to pay a fixed amount of RM300 for every hospitalization no matter what's the bill look like.

Other important elements are such as cashless admission, inner limit for cancer chemotherapy, kidney dialysis, number of days for pre-hospitalization, number of days for post-hospitalization, oversea coverage(if you are working oversea) etc.

Feel free to ask any question here and people from here will explain to you thoroughly.

Yes, you are right.

The insurer do share the records. But we are obligated to disclose everything to the insurance company about our health status when we buy an insurance policy.

I knew thoroughly both differences because I'm offering both Group Insurance and Personal Insurance to my clients be it the employee or employer. Below are the key points where you should understand.

Your employer may not offer enough life/medical insurance.
Often when I'm proposing the life/medical package to the company, the employer just going to select the lowest range of life/medical insurance because the purpose they purchasing insurance for employee is to full-fill the employee wish. However, there are still a small group of employee providing good insurance for their employee.
While basic employer-provided life/medical insurance is free, and you may be able to buy additional coverage at low rates, your policy’s face value still may not be high enough. If your premature death would be a financial burden to your spouse and/or children, you probably need coverage worth five to eight times your annual salary.
Your employer’s group life insurance might be sufficient if you’re single or if you have a spouse who isn't dependent on your income to cover household expenses and you don’t have children. But if you’re in this situation, you probably don’t need life insurance at all.

You’ll lose your coverage if your job situation changes.
As with health insurance, you don’t want gaps in your life insurance coverage, because you never know when you might need it. Most workers who get coverage through work don’t know where their life insurance will come from if they change jobs, are laid off, their employer goes out of business, or they switch from full-time to part-time status. You usually won’t be able to keep your policy in these scenarios. Lack of portability can be a problem if you aren’t going directly to another job with similar coverage and aren't healthy enough to qualify for an individual policy.

Coverage gets tricky if your health declines.
Another problem arises if you’re leaving your job because of a health problem. If you relied solely or heavily upon group insurance, and then suffer a medical condition that forces you to leave your job, you may be losing your life insurance coverage just when your family is going to need it the most. At that point it would be too late to purchase your own policy at an affordable rate, if at all, depending on the medical condition.
Even if your health problems aren't significant enough to stop you from working, they might limit your employment options if you only have life insurance through work. You could end up handcuffed to your job to keep the life insurance if you experienced a serious enough health issue

Company saving cost
Tou don’t control who provides this insurance, and your company could choose a lower-rated insurance company to save money. Finally, another possibility is that your employer could stop offering life insurance as a benefit to save the company money, leaving you without coverage.

Verdict:
Certain medical insurance by company are covering at low limit.
Imagine that if your colleague having heart attack and it's getting serious, the operation cost RM100k and your company are covering RM50k. The bad news is, after his diagnosis, your company may think that "someone" who is healthier can do a better job than your previous colleague. As soon he leaves the company, there goes his medical and life insurance.
Company insurance will be stopped as soon as the employee stop his service to the company, that's one of the reason I don't see the point company getting term life for employee rather than Personal Accident and Medical Protection.

Even if the illness is not too serious, your future insurance would be rated up or get exclusion(certain part of your body is not covered).

Maxis is only covering accidental death + very limited Accidental Disability and snatch thief. You can't claim your medical bill, weekly benefit from this PA. In short, it is payable most likely when you pass away due to accident.

Let's compare tokyo marine premier PA, RM206.70/year for RM200k sum assured, it is included the following.
Accidental Death & Permanent Disablement
Medical Expenses
Daily Hospital Cash
Weekly Benefits (Optional)
Ambulance Fees Benefit
Bereavement Allowance
Blood Transfusion Benefit
Cashless Hospital Admission Facility
Coma Benefit
Dental Correction and Corrective Cosmetic Surgery
Funeral Expenses
Kidnap Benefit
Permanent Disablement to Genitalia Benefit
Prostheses/Wheelchair Benefit
Repatriation Expenses
Travel Allowance
Double Indemnity
Renewal Bonus
Miscarriage due to Motor Vehicle Accident
Snatch Theft Benefit

There is no right or wrong, it is depends on your appetite on severity of risk you are looking for. For example, if you are having a good medical card covering your Accidental medical bill, and you do not need weekly benefit and other fringe benefits, maybe the Maxis plan is good for you.

If your company are not too huge, there are some possibilities that your company is buying you personal insurance under the company as proposal instead of group insurance. You may then ask your company absolute assign the policy to you. Other than that, that's kind of impossible.

Please refer to this post to know more about Great Eastern medical card to avoid mislead by the Allianz agent. https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...post&p=74023272
And particularly this post to view the agent has apologize for misleading. https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...post&p=74023817
Also please read this post to know more about Allianz's term&condition. https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...post&p=74029570

The Smart Extender Max is a medical protection with high deductible and high annual limit with no lifetime limit. Its function is serve to extend your annual limit to fight for inflation. You may choose it to cover your bill from
1)RM60,000-RM600,000
2)RM100,000-RM1,100,000
3)RM200,000-RM2,200,000.

You are recommended to choose the deductible according to your company's coverage limit or your existing medical card's annual limit.

It is suitable for
1)Working adult which is currently protected by company and want to hedge for large medical risk.
Example: If your company currently covering you for RM60,000 per annum medical protection. You can further enhance the protection by getting the Smart Extender Max with deductible of RM60,000. Which means the Smart Extender Max will protect your medical bill from RM60,000 to RM660,000. Shall your hospital bill is RM300,000, RM60,000 will be paid by your company and RM240,000 will be paid by Great Eastern.

2)People who were having low annual limit medical card and subsequently developed some illness and feels too expensive to upgrade medical card or will be having exclusion on new medical card.
Example: If you were holding any old insurance company medical card of annual limit RM60,000 by paying premium of RM200/month. Subsequently you were diagnosed with breast cyst and when you talk to your agent to upgrade your medical card to higher annual limit, your agent might tell you 2 options
1)Either you hold 2 medical cards which will be pretty expensive. Could be RM200/month(covering your hold body) + RM300/month(covering your whole body except breast)
2)Or you have to accept the new medical card with higher annual limit but will exclude your breast. Paying RM300/month only but this card do not cover your breast.

You were having dilemma because you do not want to pay 2 medical cards at once and you do not want to accept the new medical card proposed by your agent either because it is not covering your breast. Instead of holding two cards of RM200+RM300=RM500/month, here comes the Smart Extender Max which is affordable at RM100/month and it is covering you for the bill from RM60,000-RM660,000.

So when your medical bill unrelated to breast developed more than RM200,000, the first RM60,000 will be paid from your old medical card and the subsequent RM140,000 will be paid by Great Eastern.