premium paid is mostly fixed RM400/mth till 80 y/o sustainability age. This is because the excess premium paid in early years is invested to use to offset the high premiums at the later years. of course things may change if there's another round of medical repricing down the road 

If it is fixed then the premium should be not affected by any medical repricing down the road.
If the premium can be revised upwards due to repricing, then the premium of 400/mth is not fixed till 80 y/o sustainability age.

repricing must be approved by govt. The current repricing is after the insurance companies pressure the govt to allow it. Otherwise, the COI can only follow the age-based increase. medical repricing is quite rare in malaysia before 2010.
( repricing was not under the purview of Govt. The Govt cannot say "no repricing allowed". It is a business decision and it had always been stated in the MHI policy that premium is not fixed)


premium is always fixed at 400/mth unless you yourself wants to increase it, whether forced or voluntary. If COI increase whether due to age or repricing, you can still pay 400/mth, but your investment units will be deducted more to pay for the difference.
( during repricing, you hv the option to pay for the increase asked and keep the sustainability period or say no increase but hv the sustainability of your covered duration shortened )
When I was with AIA, they also keep sending me letters to increase premiums to maintain sustainability, i always ignore them.
( hv you checked with them lately to see if your actions had any impacted to your policy?)
If COI doesn't increase but your investment failed (due to financial crisis etc.), then you also can be forced to increase your premiums/top up because there are no units left to deduct.

When people say premium is fixed, it is based on the plan that your agent designed based on all those assumptions (no medical repricing, age-based COI increase, average investment returns of the selected ILP fund). Otherwise, you can say nothing is really fixed in this world, then there is no conversation to be held.

So if it is not fixed, then just prepare the available of budget after retirement so as to beable to keep having hv that XX million medical coverage. After retirement, the chances of needing that coverage would be much higher

you're mistaken. premium is always fixed, the insurance company cannot suka hati raise your premium any other day. They always need your consent. even under medical repricing, you can always choose not to increase your premium. If your ILP fund performs better than expectation, then you don't have to worry about repricing at all.

So is the premium always fixed or it is fixed unless gov allows it to be increased and then your consent is not needed? the latter means it is not fixed.

the last 2 years shenanigan basically tells you the answer already, regardless on how one wish to describe it. If can happen once, it most probably will happen again.

premium is always fixed, you sign a contract with the insurance company saying that you pay this amount of premium. You can go read your insurance document. Any increase will need your consent and a separate signature.

medical repricing = your COI will increase. This does not directly mean your premium increase, if your ILP make alot of money then you can maintain your premium.

you're mistaken. premium is always fixed, the insurance company cannot suka hati raise your premium any other day. They always need your consent. even under medical repricing, you can always choose not to increase your premium. If your ILP fund performs better than expectation, then you don't have to worry about repricing at all.

Hi,
Thanks for the valuable feedback. 

As the ILP stands now, it has 400k lifetime limit.  And you are right about Option B, it has a upgrade possibility now which I'm trying to find out the what's the added premium & coverage like.

About Option A.  I didn't know we can just let it deduct the medical portion, so if there is an option to terminate the Life coverage then it may work too.  But AFAIK, ILP don't exist without Life+Med ?  Will surely check it out.

And lastly, thanks for the reminder about withdrawing the old policy after a year ...

Cheers.

In your medical policy, does it has mention that premium is fixed or mentioned premium is not fixed?
I believes there is a statement mentioned premium is not fixed.
Check it out to confirm?

Even if your fund performed extremely well, repricing can also happens because of the rising cost of medical care and increases in the number of policyholder/participants going to hospitals, resulting in increases in claims on top of those scheduled increases due to age.
Can the gains from the funds is so large and also have sustainable gains until it can offsets those other factors that can cause the need for repricing for tje sustainability of your policy?
Insurance companies/takaful operators need to adjust premium/contributions to ensure claims can be paid, so they can continue to provide you with the coverage you need.
Funds managers of investment linked funds has less leeway than those normal UT funds managers. Check and compare their funds performance against those of normal UT funds.

They dont need your consent to the repricing, ....they just gives you the options, ......agree to the increase or have the sustainability shortened. "They just suggest to you"....They dont force you must . ....ha ha

I think you're mistaken or confused about a few things:

1. The term sustainability has very specific meaning when signing insurance plan. It means that when the agent design the plan for you, he/she is designing the benefits and costs based on the sustainability age. In this case, the design for me is based on age 80, and I have to pay RM400/mth.
(they initially stated 400/mth was based on the existing costing data they have projected. The underwritter does not know what will be the actual medical inflation to be and they cannot add in the future medical inflation (over X yrs) factors into the premium calculation.
They also does not have the data on number of claims nor can they add that future not confirmed rate of claims into the premium calculation.
Future funds performance are unknown too.
So they need to reprice accordingly to reflect the actual costing circumstances whenever neccesary to keep you policy sustainable.
Does your medical policy has mention of premium stated of 400/mth is fixed till 80 yrs old?
If you own a Life, CI or PA policies, the premium maybe fixed)
2. Sustainability age means the age where the policy "expire", written clearly into the contract. But in my case, there is an additional clause on "extension of coverage terms", which enables my coverage to age 101 without any further underwriting.
( without future underwritting, but what will the extra premium to be paid for that "extension of coverage terms to age 101 cost?)
3. Insurance don't need your consent on repricing, but they do need your consent on increase or decreasing premium payment. In the event if your cost of insurance increase but your premium payment is the same, then they will deduct additional units from your investment.
(other than the other 2 factors, if your investment/cash value is lesser and from they projection is unstainable for the need of your policy, ......they will suggest to you to to increase the premium as they had repriced. You can ignore and not follow their suggestion, in the end your policy will lapse due to not enough investment or cash value to continue with the required coverage)

4. If a fund performs extra exceptionally well, you must still pay RM 400/mth till the end of the policy (80 y/o), unless you request for premium holiday.
( only if when there is no medical inflation or very few pool contributors do the claim)
5. Any extra investment income does not increase the sustainability age, as it is already defined in the contract as age 80 (for my case).
( too bad,...most other policy has extra top up option to increase sustainability or reduce the rate of premium hike)

Last time, i did not keep up with the premium, solely using the investment / cash value to sustain the policy.....
In the end I got this letter from them. (as imaged)

I don't think there's any insurance plan in this world that can magically increase your coverage age just because you put more money into the investment account? When you sign for 80 y/o, it means it expires on 80 y/o. You cannot just say extend to 100 y/o just because there's alot of money in the ILP. Sustainability age can only decrease due to lack of funds, but can never increase.

I'm going to give you an honest advice.

1. Retain the policy and let your daughter take over the payments. For one simple reason - the ILP is already in-force so long that the premium allocation rate is now at 100%. If your daughter were to re-purchase an ILP, then she will need to go through lower allocations in the initial years - all that money goes into the agents pockets.

2. While it is true that a standalone medical plan is cheaper (especially over the short term), in your case this doesn't apply since the ILP allocation rate has reached 100%. If you purely look at the ILP's medical rider COI charges vs a standalone medical insurance premium, you will notice the COI is a fair bit cheaper.

3. If this is with Great Eastern, highly likely that you can upgrade the medical rider. This is very important. Your daughter needs to upgrade to at least Smart Protect Shield 250 plan. She may need to pay additional premium, that is fine.

NOTE: Make sure the medical rider upgrade is done with FULL UNDERWRITING, not as part of a "free" upgrade with no underwriting. Very important - if she does full underwriting again (assuming she is healthy), she will be placed in the pool of healthy insureds. If she takes the "free" upgrade with no underwriting, she will be placed in a pool that combines both healthy and unhealthy insureds. In the longer run, the latter pool will experience faster/sharper medical repricing.

4. Your daughter may review the sum assured and the riders. RM3k annual premium for a kid is a lot, some things may not be necessary.

5. Depending on the sustainability testing (aim for 80 years, no need 100 years), if you really must, you can partially withdraw some of the fund value - there is no penalty whatsoever.

You can choose to buy the bare minimum for life insurance coverage. Cannot be totally zero. Usually the coverage is around RM5k

2.  With it being 'Education policy', i'm still able to get a tax relief as oppose to buying a totally new standalone medical and a term life. 

3.  It has a policy end date in another 4-5 years, i might as well just continue with it considering #1 and #2 above ?

Can I request to change my insurance agent?

The agent, is just like forwarding robot to forward whatever messages or documents sent by the company to him and he just forwarded it to me without telling what is that.

Sometimes I really don't know the term and the purpose of the letter.

Can I request to change my insurance agent?

The agent, is just like forwarding robot to forward whatever messages or documents sent by the company to him and he just forwarded it to me without telling what is that.

Sometimes I really don't know the term and the purpose of the letter.