Options
1. Reduce the existing coverage to maintain a similar premium if any
2. Top up with the existing coverage
3. Change the insurance plan

mind telling what is the quantum of increase in % ?

as in post 1551, page 78 a forummer      for his was 35% for his policy with another company

Your agent is supposed to guide you through the process. there's usually slight additional explanation that comes in the letter. if you really feel the agent is useless, yes i think you should go to branch to solve it out. but be careful la, now covid ma, so choose the right time lo.

if you can share more details about your policy here, we can help explain abit more so that you dont need 2 trips to branch (hopefully, fingers crossed).

but FYI, i'm also feeling the pain of paying for the insurance for my parents, really getting very expensive. tough. sigh.

The coverage and benefits should remain the same, just that tenure of the coverage will be shorter than was originally proposed.  It would depend if you want the same coverage or lower the coverage to sustain the policy longer.

Hmmm the benefits seems a little out of date for the premium payable.

What's ur mom age and any pre existing illness?

If the agent is not available to assist your next best move is  to visit the branch. Do take note that most insurance company would require that you set an appointment for your visit.

Best,
Jiansheng

age 68... likely another jump in 1 or 2 years time. age 70 probably another hike increase in rates because you may have crossed the age band. but crossing age band is a normal hike. so the 5.8k may have factored in this already.

the hike that is informed to you by Pru via this letter, is the "abnormal" hike or what they call revise/reprice of medical product. Usually they will send you a letter and start with "healthcare cost have been consistently rising...", (someone who kena also send me a copy of the letter) and please pay the revised premium and new premium is RMxxx, effective this date. this is expected to happen every 2 to 3 years (word of mouth in the insurance industry)

So option
1) Continue to pay RM5,100. In this scenario, the cash value will be used "more" to sustain the deduction of the new increased charges of your PMM3.

You mentioned you do not want to touch the funds but the idea of this policy IS that you have paid more upfront in the past so that at times like this, you can have some flexibility of paying less due to affordability issues (especially covid now, other people got no job ma).

so chances are in this situation, your cash value may decrease (or decrease faster) but that's just how things work. even if you increase your premium, your cash value may still decrease but at a slower rate.

2) option 1 but reduce some other benefit that can be removed. example, weekly indemnity (your mother not working jor, so maybe just delete, save few ringgit also good). weekly indemnity got provide coverage to your mother it's just that usually marketed for working people when they lose income due to can't work because of accident. ADD, can still ok can keep. AMR, can save few ringgit also i guess, erm, it's when if your mother fall down, visit clinic can claim because medical card dont cover out-patient).

The 40,000 under Pru Assurance, maybe can reduce. that one is death/disability coverage.

3) pay the RM5.8k. This does not mean it wont increase or you dont need to top up in later years, merely a projection to last until age 80 (i assume is the term for your mother's policy)

4) cancel and hope your mother stay healthy (i have been contemplating this option but no guts to do so)

PS: Option 2 is recommended very general based on an average woman of 68 retired and these insurance coverage dont really make a huge difference to her finances (except for the medical) and her children can sponsor few thousand when needed and her children not relying on her as the main income earner anymore or ever in the past. Hope dont take my recommendation as bible.

PS side note: if you feel like want to screw this agent, can complaint to Prudential about this agent. actually he get commission when you increase from 5100 to 5800 also, even though the amount is very small but it's still money. maybe not enough to pay petrol for their BMW kut.

If you're looking to revise the premium, I would recommend a standalone medical card maybe?

Room 250
Annual Limit 300k
No deductible/co-insurance
Age 68 - Yearly Premium 3,000

i dont have the full letter myself so i have to guess certain aspect and just explain the concept for you

Option 1 you mentioned even if you increase your premium, your cash value may still decrease but at a slower rate. but I thought it was as simple as units of unit trust bought x unit price, or you are referring to the rate of increase after each premium might not be in par due to allocation?

Example, if you pay RM5100 but your charges is RM6000, then it decreases by RM900 every year, assuming unit trust make 0% return for the year

If you increase to RM5800 but your charges is RM6000, then it decreases by RM200 every year. Of course there is a possible scenario that you pay RM5100, charges is now RM5700, which is why they ask you to pay RM5800. I would not know which scenario it is, so this is a generalised explanation of it.

The table of projection is probably mentioning that even though the charges is only RM6000 now, it will rise up to RM7000 because she is getting older. but this RM7000 excludes future repricing exercise which can possibly happen again in another 3 years. This RM7000 assume things stay the same, purely her getting older.

To surrender the policy will be an option after 70yo but in this case we "rugi" because the PMM3 and Enhancer that we paid years before had already factored in additional $$$ for 70 - 80yo I believe?

this part abit harder to explain, i try my best but really hard when can't draw. you pay more upfront is abit like menabung. it creates some money that you now call the cash value. if you surrender now (or at age 70), you get whatever that is the cash value. if you dont increase your premium, the cash value will be used for future deduction of charges of PMM3. so you can't say what you have paid caters for later ages. the charges for PMM3 not charged yet for later years. this is a "menabung" feature from Prudential.

supplementary reading from previous post

Prulink assurance is 40k, death / TPD only. ADD is 50k. if normal death, get 40k. if accidental death get 40k + 50k.

Weird that in your previous post you've mentioned that your mom has no pre-existing illness but over here you're talking about her claiming for some CI.

Which is which ?

Then again if she is diagnosed with any illness at the moment, you have no other choice but to stick on this one and only insurance plan. Whether it's still worth keeping it or self insure yourself is the next question.

Though you pay a higher premium, you are only charged the current Cost of Insurance, the balance sits as Cash Value. Thus no 'rugi;' just that like Unit Trust, the value of your units  goes up/down based on Fund performance.
You will have less 'buffer' after you reach age 60 to sustain the policy if you opt for age 60.  You may have to top up a higher amount if you want to keep the policy after age 60.

i got the same letter/notification. but the policy is for myself. increment of 10% from the previous annual amount. bought this policy with 2.4k, then upgrade to 3k becuz of the extra benefit like coverage till 100 yo and 1mil claim per year. next year going to be 3.3k per annum.

their reasoning is that medical cost increased. if we maintain the amount, they will cut it from investment fund in the policy itself. so when policy mature that time the investment fund will have lesser amount.

my wife bought her medical from AIA and her policy should remain the same through the years by using the investment fund to cover the insurance premium. i initially also heard this from my prudential agent, looks like prudential want us to fork out more money in order to maintain the fund in investment.

What is given when you first sign up for the policy is an initial projection.

Just like your nasi lemak aunty never guarantees to sell you her nasi lemak the same price for the next 40 years.

Hence the reason why insurance companies includes a clause that the premium may be adjusted from time to time should there be any adjustment required to maintain the initial projection by topping up onto the premium

bought since 2011 together with a prucash, around 21 yo i think. the benefit as in the attachment. not sure about most of the riders actually, i only know the max room per night charge, max limit and year i will be insured.

that time just sign only because helping 1 retired neighbour. i did cancel 1 of the policy with her because cannot afford it. bad decision signed too fast.

Insurance business is a pooling of premiums to pay for policy holders claims. If medical claims increase substantially, it has to be met by increasing premium collection. Even LIAM is concern over the increase in the premium and cites increase is the high medical costs  as one of the reasons.

My job as teacher is done. Concept translated.

Yes. Rm6000 was just an example of your possible COI after this letter.

Yes. Shortfall deduct from your fund. Your number of units will decrease. The additional units you have is accumulated since the 1st day you started paying. 

Note: while i have to admit the most technical people may say my explanation is not 100% technically correct but i think you grasp the main points i want to highlight which is more important than being able to technically explain every aspect of your insurance policy.

I am sort of facing the same problem as you but with aia. With our parents getting older, finding replacement is hard. So sometimes gotta just stomach first. My regret is not buying a deductible plan or co insurance plan for my mother to reduce cost of insurance when she was few years younger. < 60 and > 65 is huge difference from insurance perspective. Sigh sigh. Now is likely too late for me too.

Actually it's quite simple. Example deductible rm5000 (i think it's usually per year, or per disability, not per admission). If hospital bill is rm8k, then the good children like us bear 5k, 3k borne by insurance company. But if the bill is like 60k, then the insurance company will bear the 55k. From a simple perspective, 5k we can makan. 60k is hard to makan. It is a stop loss strategy in a way.

These type of plan is cheaper because you makan some on your own. Also mean you wont simply claim. Insurance company like people who dont simply claim. Not that they dont want you to claim, they dont want people with slight fever or food poisoning treat hospital like hotel and treat the insurance company like water fish.

Of course not, it can only be done on the policy's anniversary / renewal

that's good to hear in theory, but buying into the investment funds, if you pay yearly, if the unit price is expensive at that point of entry, that would be a Net LOSS to the account value. Paying monthly would average the cost of entry and reduce the risk of loss.

Projection is all good but if it doesn't live up to the projection, then it's harmful to the policy holder.

The real difference is the number of transactions.

Annual payment only 1 time transaction. So only 1 times transaction fee charged.

Monthly payment is 12 times transactions in a year. So 12 transaction fees charged.

For ILP, usually there is no difference in total premiums to be paid, the difference is very slight, reflected in the difference in fund value over the years lah. NBD actually. But when customer tekan agent to go lower and lower in terms of the premiums, then when stretched until max, sometimes the same amount can go through for annual payment mode, but sangkut when changed to monthly mode.
(I tried before... a matter of rm2 difference annually. The prospect also didn't buy in the end. Also the last time I layan people like that)

For traditional and term policies, then there is a slight surcharge for anything other than Annual Premium Payment.

No, that's the policy charges from the insurance company.

You are allowed to withdraw the fund at any time with min RM1k balance in the account.

You may be required to top up once there is insufficient in the policy to sustain the policy.

The purpose of the money is in the policy is for the insurance company to reinvest the amount. Whatever you plan to do may defeat the purpose.

I apologize if I overstepped any lines. Totally was just sharing an example.
There is a premium holiday option for all ILP policies.
How it works is you stop payment, and the policy continues by charging the COI to the fund value.
One thing to pay attention to when exercising this option is to ensure that the premium holiday option allows the company to charge the COI for policy riders (such as medical rider) as well.
You can also withdraw from your fund value at any time too, according to the minimum balance, minimum withdrawal amounts set by the company.

Unless I read wrongly,  you are implying that you want to withdraw just to top up the increased premium.  If that is the case, it may not be necessary. Any shortfall in your premium to pay the monthly/annual Cost of Insurance, will be auto deducted from your 'pool of fund's. That's the basic principle of a investment linked policy, you top up today for tomorrow's increase in cost. Just need to take care, don't run out of the pool of money/cash value before your expiry of the policy.

i dunno how to explain in the simplest manner. Imagine you have RM10000 in your cash value now. You Pay RM5000 every year. the medical COI is RM6000 every year. and you have 11 years left until the coverage end. assume cash value grow at 0%.

so year 1, you pay RM5000. your total cash value now is RM15000, your COI is RM6000, so your cash value will decrease to RM9000
year 2, rinse, repeat, decrease to 8000
year 10, decrease to 0
year 11, no coverage because decreased to zero. To avoid this, you can immediately pay 6000 before the insurance company terminate your coverage and you still can enjoy coverage for year 11 despite no cash value. because you have enough charges for year 11.

What happen in year 1 and year 2, is automatic. that "Withdrawal" of RM1000 in depleting your cash value happens automatically and does not need any explicit action from you.

that's the beauty of investment linked plan.

Check with your agent again.
One of my policy, the COI is higher than my premium, but still paying the same lesser premium.

If the company die die want u to pay the amount eg 416 to 466. Then ur will have debt Of arm 50monthly.  They will use ur fund to pay the difference since u r using online banking.

Ok. Faham. The prudential online website, i dunno if they will increase to 5600. But i think they will "auto" increase, purely my guess. In theory you can say no and continue the lower amount. But this may require manual human intervention, to lower it first, then when you go to their epay system before due, then pay the revised amount (the one you want, not the amount they think you should pay)

For my own case, it's not ILP. So memang need to pay higher. It's just mine was cheap, 20% maybe +rm30 only. Haha.

By right there is an option for you to choose when the letter is sent to you.

Probably if you got the letter, you can paste a copy here for our reference

i forgot how stupid Prudential can be. now what i'm concern is, i think the agent bs-ing. anyway, in theory, you have every right to pay the premium you want without asking agent to withdraw the money, give you and you pay. this is not supposed to happen in an ILP plan. but i do worry prudential punya system memang this cacat (no prudential agent here to counter verify). I think i have been misled by the possibility of the stupidity of prudential.

depends on how much fuss you want to make to Prudential. if you got time, go make fuss and vent some anger and send email to BNM too if you want.

yes, to me, what GE is doing makes more sense.
they dont accept sick people, abnormal biologically. it's not personal. it's more biology

you can try. use the information shared by cybpsych on GE and compare that to what prudential is giving you. i can say if you are in the mood, complaint to BNM, saying things like you can't afford to increase, but actually there's money in my account, i dont know why prudential forcing me to increase. i was told by my agent ILP is very flexible. i'm genuinely curious la.

Haha. They cant. This is ILP, so no such thing.

But for those under traditional plan, yes they can charge interest. This is stated in the contract. Mine is clearly stated so all fair and square.

Let me check on the latest guideline, get back to you tmr
ILP you don’t incur interest if you withdraw the money out

However if you’re taking a premium loan from the policy such as traditional plans, then you will incur 8% interest until you pay back the amount.