Hi Gurus, not sure if this is relevant question, no intention to compare different provider, but there's been one single question that troubling me.... Just comparison sake let say between medical plan from GE and Prudential e.g. Smartmedic + Smartmedic Extender vs PruValue Med, let say taking example of non-smoking male, NB 41, R&B 300, expiry age 80, Class 2 ..... When consider in-par plan e.g. GE with SM300 + SE300K while Prudential with Med Point 1.5 mil & med saver 300, just comparing the premium for ONLY medical card portion, what is the reason that difference could go way beyond two or even three fold.

My limited insurance knowledge, but could all insurance guru out there enlighten me what's the catch / distinct difference to look out for in considering such plan with hefty premium differences. Two plans looks almost identical (main benefit per say) from my limited knowledge.

Thank you so much.

I'd excluded other charges or investment/riders etc, this is only pertaining to annual insurance charges for the medical card only (the one with step premium every 5 years).. GE is RM808+RM102.82 while Prudential is already RM4415.28 per annum (range of age 41-45).

Yes, definitely need to measure how "comfortable" is my wallet to fork out this "premium" year-in-year-out and the stepping every 5 years thereafter, not to mention any upcoming inflation that could further cause the insurance cost to fluctuate further (increasing trend).

My concern is still why the distinct different of premium between 910.82 vs 4415.28, is there some catch / hidden things that separate the hefty difference of two company providing "almost equivalent" medical card coverage. I understand good things don't usually comes cheap, but is really expensive price determine really good things in such context - pricing different.

GE - refer to SM300 + SE300K column in image attachment
Prudential - refer to pvm benefit image attachment

Insurance cost for medical card is FIXED prices per age range (smoker/non-smoker, gender, coverage years - don't even get into price increase etc, at least for now, this is the price costing per age-band), I'm not to compare anything else aside from insurance cost for medical card alone, not even which company does better with their investment portfolio etc, just strictly on medical card cost of insurance vs the premium annually on medical card portion.


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GE - COI as per attached for SM300 + SE300K
Prudential - COI in their website not applicable for the plan discussed, the quoted premium (monthly x 12) will be the COI annually for 41-45 age , per attached


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Refer to my other reply, I'd attached both COI and Benefits table for both product. I'm not into sales illustration difference as I just want to find out why two company can offer devastating difference in COI (premium charge) for two "almost similar" product offering..... I'm not insurance expert, so , just wanted some pointer to aid my understanding why differences (vast amount of $$$) for two product. It's like buying Perodua vs BMW

Hi, I understand that, I just want to tackle the part on charges for medical card , for the case of Prudential quotation, total premium (monthly) is RM460, this is made up of basic account ILP (rm16.68) and CI (rm13.00) ; protection account PVM (rm367.94) and waiver (rm62.38). So, I just want to compare only the RM367.94 part (which total to RM4415.28 yearly as opposed to GE with only RM910.82 yearly).

PVM or SmartMedic + SM Extender, this should be the comparison part that I'm interested in, while each product comes with its own COI, I'm more keen to understand what makes the vast amount of differences which is 4.8 times higher for PVM. Assuming these medical card as car for analogy comparison, then I need an answer why Perodua cost only 60K while a BMW cost 288K, each still a car but bearing different price tag, so what exactly more superior of BMW vs Perodua to worth the additional 4.8 times higher price tag to facilitate consumer like me to decide which is better car to take up.

I'm getting long-winded , sorry about that.

As informed, PVM COI (attached) only for 1mil med points while the one compared is with 1.5mil med points. Quotation doesn't comes with full listing of all COI, so, really doesn't know where to get it.


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@roystevenung, as the only qualified Prudential guru here, maybe you can comment bit. Thanks.

The 1mil med point from their website, but the 4K premium on 1.5mil med point is from recent quotation, last week.

Expensive is one thing, but I do want to find out the rationale behind. Eg, one company promises moon and stars with kitty cost, another with such limited benefit per say, but such higher premium. So, cheaper better and expensive lousier? Or there's catch between the lines that consumers like us failed to distinguish. I don't think Prudential is a no brainer to charge such high COI, but just we may failed to understand the logic behind when rest of competitors are having much lesser COI. Heachache. Seems like no guru or sifu here that could explain this.

Hi, I still ended up with PVM, 1mil med value point with 20K deductible. Using this as a shield to strengthen my ancient medical insurance with prudential... PMM1.. which just received notification few days back on increased insurance cost and prudential increased my lifetime limit to 210K now (originally 150K) .

One of the reason is to utilize the cashless claim with prudential's HAS. Not sure how hassle would it be if my 2nd medical insurance with another insurance provider. If need to go through pay-first, reimburse-later, not sure if I'll be ended with borrowing $$ to settle medical bill which will severely defeat the purpose of having insurance perceived to give me peace of mind.

Well, I still not able to figure out why prudential cost so much expensive compared to other providers and yet the limit and features are way below others. But, down to earth a bit, i really don't think there's free lunch with paying so little premium and having unlimited claims. It'll be like other providers being in charity industry with prudential otherwise? Well, insurance is just a figure plan, if customers starts abusing and over claim, then repricing will occur much rapidly to sustain the plan.

Currently my monthly premium is still manageable with the original rm300+ monthly (medical plus CI and few other riders and ILP) and topping up about ~rm100++ (ILP with bare minimum life protection, just going after PVM) for the medical insurance expansion, effectively bumping up my 210K lifetime limit to 1mil fully covered lifetime limit and 20% coinsurance if to utilize the unlimited lifetime limit after 1mil exhausted.

Thanks for reaffirming this. This is one of my yardstick to decide with PVM though it is really more expensive than other.

This will be losing to customer eg pre-existing conditions etc. They need to start all-over again or in-eligibility risk. Plus, terms in dinosaur medical card in early years are not all bad. Aside from kitty limit both annual and lifetime, they can be really quite good too. Eg, my ancient plan PMM1, just as an example. It really boils down to how agent telling the pros and cons before pursuading customer to switch or upgrade. Or they just want the new business. This is not like buying handphone, otherwise life or medical insurance is utterly bullshit if all plan on early years are lousy when compare to newer plan introduced. Then one should not consider buying insurance oledi since newer and better will keep coming out while older plan signed is destined to phased out and labeled useless. Just my take on this.

Employer medical insurance will cover preexisting conditions?
What if one decide to change job, will this cause more reasonable worries than peace of mind?
Or, stay employed with same employer for sake of medical insurance coverage?
Then, what happen when retire, no need medical insurance protection at age 55 etc ?
If employer (one still stay employed with same company) decide to change insurer, what is the impact to insurance coverage especially under preexisting conditions ?

GE sifus,

For GE SmartMedic Xtra, NB, was told by agent that for first 2 years, no cashless benefit, e.g. any medical claim has to be via "pay first, claim later".

Is this true ? I'd yet to receive policy, so unable to ascertain if this is mentioned in the contract.

GE sifus,

Also, let say GE SmartMedic Xtra, assuming opted SMX200 with R&B RM200, was told that should during admission we opted for room & board exceeding RM200 (let say upgrade to a room more than covered by insurance entitlement), then it's not about paying the "excess" of the covered RM200 under SMX200 but it'll incur co-insurance of 20% of total-bill including post-hospitalization treatment (also subjected to co-insurance of 20%), is this true ?

This post has been edited by mktan78: Oct 3 2018, 01:46 PM

Sorry, this was for New Born (baby). Will the waiting period be longer than 120-days e.g 730 days (2-years) ? Was told, for first 2-years of the baby's age, proceed to pay-first claim later.