Insurance is essential for everyone cause medical fees is very expensive nowadays. There are 2 insurance that everyone must have.
1) Medical Card
2) Critical Illness coverage.

BTW, you can only buy it when you are healthy. So it is advisable not to delay if you can afford it cause we do not know what will happen tomorrow.

can start off with minimum for medical card, once you are in, you can upgrade it as you grow older as long as you are healthy.

Buying a policy its best to have the Critical Illness and Permanent Disability rider attached. If you cant afford at least get a PA. With increase in population and cases of accidents, it is handy to have one.

Oops.. sorry cuebiz had it covered earlier. But most importantly get a policy from one agent that is serious in the business. Sometimes it is nice to help out a friend but if he is not going to be long in the industry its best to get it from someone who has some track record in it as it will be easier for him/her to help arrange for the claims when the need arises.

This post has been edited by Grengo01: Dec 4 2006, 05:06 PM

Civil has explained it.

In fact, the 2-in-1 insurance is that they apportion part of your premium paid to insurance and to those linked investment (unit trust)

For example, your premium a year is RM2000 and may be RM500 is linked apportioned to unit trust.

RM500 is divided according to that market price at that time and see how many units you can buy. The balance of RM1500 is allocated to normal insurance protection.

Correct me I was wrong.

Always buy investment-linked insurance product for its PROTECTION, not return as it will be low bcos of insurance fees included. Normally the return would be what-u-put-in-is-what-u-get-back. Its good in terms of protection since they give u medical n life coverage.

But if u wan a return almost same of FD account in bank + insurance coverage, go for life products. There is no cheap or expensive product. Just remember what u pay is what u get.

From my experiences, the invesment will only break even after 6 years and after that you'll should be gaining something from it.

FYI,

company does buy group policy for you, bear in mind, that is somewhat a key person insurance, something similar. Well, some even come with medical card.

However, if you pass away, your company might receive 1 million, and they have no obligation to pay your family that amount, because the main purpose the company buy this insurance is to protect themselves more than you. You can check this terms at your letter of offer.

Some company will state that, if anything happened, you will be paid, say 24 months of your salary, things like that. A lot of small companies, most of the time, take advantage on it.

The best way, is to buy yourself a policy.

Of course, the earlier you get one, the cheaper is it compare with later age. When we get older, we might get disease we dont know. So try to avoid it.

Buying insurance is meant for protection, not for investment.

Well, the investment, if gain in large sum, might able to cover your premium in later age, so that you dont hafta worry about it.

Ya, if you wanna go for the cheapest way,

get a term insurance, with medical card.

Actually this might be the best ( In US, theer are ppl saying that, all we need is term insurance + medical card ) The rest we hardly use it

Make sure you pay your premium monthly, not half a year or pay full for a year.

So that your unit trust can go on cost averaging down.

FYI, last year a lot allianz investment link lapse, because their fund was not performing ( -40% ), and most of the policy pay one shot for a year.

Well, that is of the purpose of investment-linked. You can use the earned money value to cover your premium in later ages; 10 or 15 years later.

What do you meant? Their investment link lost in profit? How they dealt with it?

Normally people who have started working with not much cash to spare will buy investment link policies coz we have some protection and at the same time, we are saving money. Just take the investment link as a saving program, though we need >6 years usually to see break even and later earn profits. This is becasue during the first feew years, part of our premiums paid went to the charges and commission. But after some years later, the insurer will invest 100% of your premium into investment, plus another 10% bonus from them.

Why the hell you want to pay ADDITIONAL insurance agent commission to buy unit trust when you can do it yourself? That is essentially what you are doing when you buy investment linked insurance.

Dreamer

This post has been edited by dreamer101: Dec 6 2006, 11:50 AM

But they are acting as your fund manager, a little reward for them could bode well in the long run.

B.S.

You could hire the SAME fund manager and buy the SAME unit trust without paying ADDITIONAL commission to the insurance agent.

<<A little reward??>>

LOL. Do you have any idea how much commission you are paying for this? As I have always tell people, if you are good in selling, you should sell INSURANCE. You could get RICH from insurance commission.

Dreamer

Oh no, go easy on me, i am still in the learning phase, I am aware that some insurance agents gets wealthy just by commissions alone. Recently Thestar also featured an article on two ladies being millionaires by selling insurance.

I tought i read that article in TheStar.. they were actually selling unit trust..not insurance

BTW FYI, i hav a fren who bought investment-link a good 10 years ago. He hav put in total 18k. When he check how much his return, its only around 6k. So it suk.
Go for traditional product. Go go go!

I have no idea what article you are talking about. But, there are MORE people getting rich selling life insurance than unit trust. For investment linked insurance, you have NO idea how much of your premium is going towards investment versus insurance and how much is your actual return. It is easier to collect HUGE commission and people are HAPPY to pay it since they have NO IDEA how much they are paying.

Dreamer

As i mentioned before, term insurance with medical card might be the best choice. The only issue you need to deal with, is the medical card.

Traditional products, especial those so called policy that only need to pay for 10 yrs or 20 yrs; or cover 3 generation, please do not buy.

Consider term insurance if you are on tight budget. It is cheaper but one thing about it is that you will need to pay the premium until you either surrender it or dead.
Those life insurance have dividend being paid and traditionally, you can stop paying the premium after 16 years as the dividend earn could cover the premium.

i've paid for 1 term insurance for 4 months. if i decided to stop now. i losss all 4 months premium right? is there any other problem i'll face?