Why did you say hiking a few times? You bought this in 2022, and the 1st time you received a letter that it will hike is 2024 or 2023?

I recall that someone shared a paragraph from their prudential letter previously, prudential usually provide an option that is slightly cheaper for you to choose.

Nothing sus. Prudential doing it. GE doing it, AIA doing it, everybody doing it.

let me try to reply nicer... when youtube premium naik harga, do you call them unlawful? or are we "katak di bawah tempurung"? if there is indeed unlawful act, we have avenues to lodge policy report, correct?

anyway, it's rhetorical. dont need to answer.

reality is more claims = more money paid by insurance companies to hospitals = cost being passed to consumers. after all, we are not born yesterday, insurance companies are profit making company, and not charity organisation.

but let me paint a few things out there still
1) is inflation a problem? yes, totally.
2) are insurance companies making profit? yes
3) are private hospitals making profit? also yes.

but the reality is can government hospitals support 100% of the population? sadly no either.

but what can consumers realistically do? yes, demand more transparency from BNM, insurance companies, hospitals. hold all parties to account. ok la, to be fair, got MP bring up this issue to parliment la on the rising cost of insurance but on the other hand and i mean seriously, we all have seen hospital charging RM10 for one strip of panadol, hospital charging RMXX for one pair of gloves, that you can buy one box at the pharmacy. but i also dont want to say hospital fault. doctors and other healthcare do work hard, they also human, they need to be paid, genuinely they deserve to be paid well too. maybe the extra money i pay for the glove goes back to nurse punya salary right? who knows... i'm just a random person on the internet, i dont think this is a small problem that i can solve.

maybe the more realistic question is what else can we, normal people, do for your insurance plans? try asking for plans with higher co-payment and deductible. insurance is about "risk transfer". sure, you can't pay 100k hospital bill, but 1k 3k 5k, 10%, 20%, i think we can afford to pay some. yes, you claim less from the insurance companies but you also pay less premium. is this the only solution? probably not but we can start thinking along this line and start asking questions. hypothetical numbers but example if i pay 3k only when i masuk hospital and i masuk hospital only once in 10 years, but the insurance savings over 10 years is 6k, it's still worth it right? but if you dont ask how will you know?

what is your current annual limit? what will be the new annual limit?

how old is your insurance plan?

have you downloaded the list of SMART hospitals?

example, putting my myself into my hometown, ipoh, so they actually excluded 2 big hospitals in ipoh, which is KPJ and Pantai. i would be ok using my mother's policy as example, her insurance is getting expensive, any reduction will be good, and the nearest hospital is in the list.

the good thing is your agent didnt ask you to buy a new policy, it's merely switching the option. good la, he's doing his servicing job.

You just have to be aware of the trade off. Good luck in deciding.

1) I don't advice getting a medical plan with no deductible. It is gonna be expensive. Having some deductible has savings.

2) realistically it's not possible to get rm600 yearly. Medical insurance is getting expensive. It's a bit like asking can still get rm5 chap fan but got meat, got vege in klang valley.

3) you can check out kaotim medikad. Good and cheap. Dunno sustainable or not.

Nothing personal in my comments. This kind of rubbish ringgit plus article, tolong remove. You are only bringing up anger here especially on point 2 and point 4 in this climate.

I personally benefitted alot from ringgit plus for credit cards but insurance article are too technical for RP to do good articles.

Would you want to consider keeping your deductible for that amount even after you retire?

Just for discussion sake...

Problem is, when you opt for lower deductible later, insurance company consider that as increase in risk to them, they have the right to reassess your health condition.

Someone kinda beat me to it. Actually aia has one which auto reduces at age 60. But it drops from 20k to 500 deductible. So it takes the problem i mentioned away, where it auto drops, no reassessment needed. 2 problems with this option for someone like me.

1) very likely retirement will be earlier than 60
2) 500 deductible is probably not gonna help reduce claims in future so repricing gonna hurt.

But compare to HLA that drops to 0 deductible at age 60, i think aia is better. Because it will just cost a bomb when i reach age 60 for a medical plan without deductible.

Anyway, like i say it was discussion sake when i asked the question. The aia / hla option is there. Although not in the manner you would prefer.

I would advice getting around 10k deductible even post retirement. Of course nothing is certain but the savings from paying less premium is definitely worth it in my opinion. Unless you are really unlucky, hit by multiple disease over a short time. My own policy is 15k deductible, it has to stay that way until i die.

This post has been edited by adele123: Dec 9 2024, 06:59 PM

I dont think mine is a good benchmark. But in the interest of sharing, also not a promotion. Mine is from HLA. It was a old plan, non IL that i got 10 years back. The annual limit is 120k only, with deductible 15k. Lifetime limit 720k. Which is annoying. I did buy another medical card to add on to this.

Original website and press release from BNM

https://www.bnm.gov.my/-/mhit-pr

https://www.bnm.gov.my/mhit

This post has been edited by adele123: Dec 20 2024, 06:43 PM

Check out kaotim medikad and compare.

There is really nothing much to compare, just buy whichever cheaper. They will eventually get more expensive. As much as we dont like it, medical inflation is not low in malaysia.

Start from fi.life, kaotim Legasi, etiqa website. If there is a comparison website that is reliable, can use that.

Just reminder, to everyone else.. What the above poster has mentioned here, and what mr Ramjade has also said, are hearsay and no basis. I will say even the hospital staff is also hearsay because they also don't know how the process really works in an insurance company

The conversation in the last few post seems to imply the person working at certain insurance companies or certain companies, will happily decline claims.

It's abit like the auntie talk in a restaurant, saying the worker very stingy with food, dont want to give me more tea or more soup. Honestly, if the worker is not the owner, the worker just dont give a damn. they do enough not to get scolded by boss, and they do enough to please the customer, so they would have follow the SOP set by their boss. they really not in there to save money for their boss by giving less tea or soup to the customer.

Now using this analogy and apply to a corporate setting, the employees dont go to office thinking how many claims i want to decline so the company earns more profit. the employee is there, show up, analyse claims, dont get scolded by boss, do work according to SOP, clock out and go home. To decline claim, later the hospital call, the customer call, the agent call, so much work to handle.

I dont work in claims, i just apply normal logic. We all have to remember these are normal employees. i am just a normal employee too. i dont go into office thinking how i can strategise for my employer increase profit by 30% to hit RM100mil RM200mil profit or whatever.

Yes, one can argue, what i have said also hearsay and no basis. but hey... i lay out good analogy at least..? and my past contribution should count for some credibility right?

Good night, happy new year

Your thought process is going everywhere and nowhere. LOL

1st of all, there is no such thing as BNM allowing repricing as a thing. In a way, nothing to do with them but of course in a way, everything has something to do with them.

If you have bought a medical policy, be it standalone or as rider to investment linked policy, within the insurance contract they would have state that, they have the right to increase price. Contractually, the insurance companies do have the right. Now, BNM role (i assume) is to facilitate these situations ensure that insurance companies are not excessively increasing price and profiteering, etc.

The repricing has nothing to do with sustaining the ILP. There is association but not causation.

Medical repricing happens because of medical inflation.

Ya, you used the word giving green light. I think it's more appropriate.

But I just want to highlight contractually, they have it written in the contract.

The insurance companies are for-profit companies. Of course they want more money. We have to believe BNM is there to ensure repricing was not to "profit excessively". Having said that, the claims has deteriorated a lot post COVID. Hence, so many increasing now. Hence the big hoohaa.

This post has been edited by adele123: Jan 19 2025, 11:50 PM

No context abit hard to explain.

Could be, you have different riders. 1 rider 1 line of transaction. Could be you have more than 1 fund. But you say single fund.

Maybe death 1 line, TPD 1 line. Critical illness 1 line. Dunno la. I am not expert but educated guess.

But if you think they double charge can tell them

i wrote a long post about why you should not change. because when you change, you benefit no one but the agent because the agent get to earn new commission.

But the reason mentioned by your friends are also legit points especially as you get older. i would assume the audience here are largely mid 30s to 40s... hence the health problem is starting to pop up.

The good thing is, there's BNM interim measures coming in to slow down the increasing premium.

The only thing you should not do is change insurance company because it wont solve the problem.

If you really have affordability concern, you can look into your policy, see how much account value you have, either stop paying a few months, improve your cashflow a bit, then go back to paying monthly. This one got some risk, later accidentally lapse, this is a solution, albeit i dont think this is a good solution even though i suggested it. OR just downgrade entirely, pay lesser by around RM30 to 50 per month, if possible. I would suggest taking up higher deductible amount. I know prudential does offer it, based on past response here. DO NOT DO NOT stay in plans with 0 deductible. Minimum go for RM300 deductible but if possible go for RM1,000 deductible. i mean... if you can't afford RM1k during masuk hospital, i think you might as well terminate your policies, because this mean that if you can't fund out RM1k for emergency, i think you got bigger problems to worry about. However, to me, it does not sound like you have this problem.

i also have a different perspective. if you have employer's medical coverage, and it covers your kids, i actually think dont need to keep the policy for your kids. I dont recall getting hospitalised as an older kid is a frequent incident (just purely my conjecture). Of course some bound to have been sick and hospitalised, but the savings you get for not paying insurance for x years is likely enough to cover the actual cost of hospitalisation. Of course, there's a trade off, they better not get so sick that they can't buy insurance in future or they get hospitalised frequently that it costs more than your premium savings.

Whoever your friend is, seems to be giving solid advice though.

email Allianz on what can you do... NOT email them just to change agent. that takes too long anyway. just ask them what are your options now. their customer service has a duty to serve you too.

MUM totally quoted a wrong brochure from GE Singapore.

Your yearly statement contains all insurance charges from all things you have under your ILP policy. This include the life insurance coverage portion (aka the death TPD portion) and other optional benefits if you have any, and also include your current medical plan. The one in the brochure refers to the medical plan only.

So you just need to open your previous repricing letter, see if GE told you the future rates of your medical plan compare it with the the one in the brochure.

There is really no best. They are all very similar and not too different and will definitely cover the important things.

What matters more is really the person "aka" the agent who is helping you and his/her professionalism and longevity in the industry.

What is best is... If you currently have insurance already, don't simply switch without understanding the cost of switching.

If you don't have any currently, just shop for 2 or 3 and compare.

I tried to answer your original question 1st. If you have done the right comparison, where the COI of your current medical plan vs the COI of the new medical plan, if there is indeed no increase, then i think i highly suggest you to move over. Because in your previous post, you mention from your annual statement but actually in annual statement it contains COI of other non medical plans as well.

As for your original question on why there is such a huge premium increase, that i can only educated guess. When an insurance company ask you to move to a different plan, they typically need to NOT JUST take into account the current COI, but also the FUTURE COI. For example, if your current medical is until age 70, but lets say the new medical plan is until age 80, even if the COI is about the same, they PROBABLY have to take into account the COI for that additional 10 years.

Whether to upgrade your current medical plan to the new medical plan, i personally will do it. I think you said your plan is 200k annual limit? While 5mil is unnecessary but 200k is abit on the lower range but still very comfortable factoring inflation and etc... Then again if 200k is annual limit, and no lifetime limit, actually still ok (IMO). I mean, unless we all have stats on average cost of treatment easily lying around and do our medical inflation projection... then... we do our own estimate la.

Yes. In theory, if you have enough money in your policy, you can stop paying for awhile. It is the flexibility (pros and cons too) of owning ILP polic. Your plan is somewhat solid. You have realised what needs to be done with the necessary buffer.

I list down again the key thing you should do.

1) find out future charges
2) keep some buffer (the dwindling down to 3k)
3) you need to continuously monitor on a yearly basis on where your policy is now because 1 and 2 needs to be adjusted accordingly.

The complication is purely our human capacity and time. Such tracking is usually not for the average joe on the street. But if you are discipline, its ok too. And we all know in the long run ETF is the way to go. Insurance fund is like normal unit trust, under perform and high charges.

The increase in medical COI when done by the company is across the board ie it impacts everyone like you who bought the same medical plan from the same company.

I hope my input can help.