Reason given on the last page of the letter.

hi, i have a relative looking to buy medical insurance. never bought insurance before.

profile; female, 48 yo, housewife, non-smoker / non-drinker. just scared one day got medical problem. currently only got slight chlorestrol thats all.

looking for medical insurance coverage say $1m (open to suggestions), with zero / minimal life insurance (not a believer in insurance investment) and valid till say 100 yo or death (which ever is earlier).

can you pls recommend ?

tks

This post has been edited by billyboy: Apr 7 2019, 12:53 PM

increase in cost of insurance overtime

Medical AIA Med Regular + Medbooster 1.5M AL, B&R 250, 20% increase in B&R every 2 years NCB for 10 years (RM 77+31/month)

Life AIA Protect Term 5 year term 300k (RM105/month)

CI AIA Critical Illness cover 500K (RM40/month)

Cancer AIA Cancer 360 100k (RM99/month)

PA AIA FlexPA + Living Protector 500k (with extra 500k) (RM82+19/month)

Total premium - RM453/month.

Am I getting a good deal for all the standalone plans above or you guys can recommend something better? Prefer to get everything from one company though for simplicity's sake and hopefully better value/proposition from the insurance company since I'm getting like 5 plans from one company..

If there's something cheaper, really don't mind looking at it. RM433/month is high and it would only get higher with age (I'm below 30 this year)

___________________________________________________
Some questions:

1) A Med-Regular (standalone medical) states we are covered worldwide but the an add on(Med booster) for the A-Med plan (rider) specifically states that there would be 500k allocated for treatment/hospitalization in Singapore? I don't quite get this. What does AIA even mean 'covered worldwide' in the first place?

2) I think the only few companies who offer hospitalization/treatment in Singapore is Allianz, AIA, Hong Leong Assurance, Manulife, AXA? Correct me if I'm wrong.

3) What's the general consensus of always choosing the big 4 companies (AIA, GE, Allianz, Prudential)? Why not the smaller players like AXA (which I think has some great plans)? Is it due to the delay of claims? Bad customer service etc?

This post has been edited by -kytz-: Apr 7 2019, 10:57 PM

Thinking of getting a medical card for my mom. Her age is 50+. Was quoted for an ILP plan (with bare minimum life/TPD benefit) which costs around RM 400/month. The COI is lower than premiums of standalone plans (I have compared up to the age of 80) out there and benefits are also much better.

However, due to the nature of ILP, this would mean initial high costs. Being just 20+ now, obviously I do not want to commit so much because I have other commitments (car loans, PTPTN etc) as well. My mom, due to some previous mistakes, has almost no savings today.(which is another story but irrelevant here)

I have since thought of a brilliant idea. In ILP as long as we have sufficient units (account value) inside, the policy will not lapse. So, I can twist around and only pay for the bare minimum of ILP plan required to sustain the policy, which is the Basic Life COI+ Rider COI+Fund Management Fee+Direct Distribution Costs. In other words my accumulated cash value/surrender value will be almost zero every month. By doing this I can reduce the premium by RM 150/month.

Yes I know I will pay more in future but I can have better cash flow instead of throwing all into insurance.

Any possibility of going wrong with this method? Would my agent commission be affected and gets pissed off and don't want to serve me? (I didn't actually told my agent frankly about this, because I afraid he will gets pissed off.)

not wrong in what you've just said, if priority is to cover current risk with the limited budget, rather than exposed to financial sink hole when your mom is sick. Then taking the standalone will be more ideal.

If you really want to go with this strategy you have to check how the insurance company you're applying with recognises a premium payment.

For example:

COI : RM100
Premium: RM150

If you have rm100 that month, would the company keep your money in a suspend account until the rm50 is deposited or they would recognise the RM100 upfront hence helping to clear the COI.

During the first 2 years your cash value would be relatively low so if you want to use this method you're in quite a risky place for the policy to lapse. Once a policy lapse you are required to pay all the premium owed and also start the waiting period all over again.

As to how it will affect your agent, definitely his commission will be affected and also his persistency but assuming your case value is less than 1% of his total sale then it shouldn't be a problem at all.

Just remembered. DO NOT LAPSE your policy.

Best,
Jiansheng

This post has been edited by Holocene: Apr 8 2019, 11:03 AM

I may miss the details in the letter, but I echo your sentiment.

Upgrade to RM190 per month - to maintain the same 100k
New policies RM200 per month - 1 million dollar coverage

Given that even if I go for the revised product. I will most likely go through the same predicament in years to come.

“Continue rise of insurance cost, recommend to increase premium to main the same coverage, etc...BUT hold-up we got another 2 million dollar infinite claim, next gen insurance product here!”

well every company always has the next best thing, if not how to increase profit kan ?

But standalone cost more even taking into account for life+fund mgmt fee+direct distribution costs. The difference continues up to age of 80. So from my point of view not worth to buy standalone. This is why I still want to purchase this ILP but to twist it and make the premium lower (make it like standalone). But I wonder this method has any flaws in it.

Might as well straight away go to standalone.

Please be reminded those investment portion that goes to unit trust, a 3-5% sales charges and 0.5~1.5% annual management may incur in the first place. And various tnc to protect insurance company interest.

Don't be penny wise and pound foolish, and try to "win" against the insurance company.

Insurance company hire top actuarial science people and powerful computer algorithms to compute those possibilities and various scenario already before deciding their premium.
So I don't think it is worth the effort to find loopholes against computer algorithms.

the flaw will be your investment value overtime will be insufficient and you'll be required to do a top up on top of your premium in the future.

It has its own pros and cons, as long as you can commit to the budget of RM400/mth without killing yourself then it's more worthwhile, otherwise, spend something within your financial means.

I see. Will try to check that out. Thanks.

Yes for 1st 2 yrs, because only 40% of the 1st RM 100 of monthly premium is allocated, so I know the cash value will be lower. I have already take into account of that issue, still it would be around RM 150 cheaper.

Well, but standalone cost more even taking into account for life+fund mgmt fee+direct distribution costs. The difference continues up to age of 80. So from my point of view not worth to buy standalone. This is why I still want to purchase this ILP but to twist it and make the premium lower (make it like standalone).

Fund management fee I already take into account by inflating around 5% which is well over the fund management fee stated in the sales illustration. For the sales charges, thanks for reminding me. I will check it out. But shouldn't be too much as Unit Trust out there charges also like 5%. Which would be like an additional of RM 10? I guess?

Standalone cost more because they do not make profit from your extra premium(compared to standalone) for investment portion.

Just like you buy fast food, combo set vs ala-carte.
Combo definitely is cheaper, no doubt, but you need to spend more.

Standalone, you free up commitment, as premium is lower than ILP, but at the expense more expensive COI for medical.
But at the same time, it free up your cashflow.

The deal is always fair, (as said, insurance is already highly "computed" business), you don't try to "win' against it.

You get something better deal, you need to pay more. There is no free lunch in insurance.

And insurance is highly regulated industry, insurance company won't able simply put high premium in insurance to "chop" consumer.

If really financial constraint until need count until Rm5 or RM10 decimal point, then one should review the financial planning properly.
Getting a medical insurance won't magically solve all the medical cost problem, medical insurance is not covering everything, there are areas that medical insurance won't cover, as well as other post medication expenses that may need one's cash saving to pay for it.

Don't get me wrong, not to say which is better, as in insurance there is no such thing which is better.

hi, i had earlier requested for information / help / quotation on medical insurance.....

i'm confused between GE and AIA

GE
- show the premium forecast, and how it escalates sharply as your reach 60+ / 70+ yo...

AIA
- they tell me that it won't increase much, and at most maybe another 10% to 15% but nothing in b/w.

i'm sorry for being so ambiguous but i'm trying to understand if AIA is really so kind to keep premium increase at a minimum 20 years down the road comapred to GE or did i miss something....

appreciate any comments...don't want surprises 20 years later....tks

All company will increase their price for the standalone medical card because more and more people will move out from standalone plan to a better invested link plan. Therefore, every few years they will increase prices, and actually AIA, Allianz, etc will increase price within this few months.

tks honeydewboy for the feedback

can i ask you what do you do for your own personal medical protection ?

hope to learn from you first !

Premiums will subject to increase by the insurance company in the long run.

No point comparing the cost of insurance now haha just go with the one you're comfortable with

myself are taking SPEI2 from Great Eastern with RM150 R&B, and monthly are paying RM 200. The main concern of having investedlink insurance are the cash value inside actually. nor matter how cheap is the plan, without the cash value inside will causes me having hard time to pay in future.