The thing about medical insurance is that it's good to have when you actually have health problems. So thinking that you end up paying for nothing, it's very small thing when you finally do have a health problem.

The earlier that you start medical insurance, the cheaper it will be in the long run. I see my parents now taking out insurance in the later part of their lives, they have to pay more than what they would have paid if they had started earlier. And the premium doesn't have to be in the high ranges. If you tell the insurance agent that your budget is low, they shoudl be able to give you a lower premium until you are able financially to pay more.

You may want to look for a policy that will cover both heart diseases and back problems. These may usually not be part of critical illnesses but it's popping up more regularly. Take it from someone who is experiencing both. It's expensive to treat.

The other thing is the cost of doing the medical tests. There's only a certain limit that the insurance will cover so gotta check if that covers it for you too.

myremi, good say good say..

Insurance was invented with a good will for a group of people to share common risks.
It is good as long as you have achieve your objective of protection.

Well, the golden years are below 30 years of age. After 30, that's when health problems start popping up and it's annoying when insurance or your company's health policy doesn't quite cover everything. Some ppl try SOCSO but even that is not a lot.

Hmm...and I think with the different types of insurance around, it's not easy to do the comparison. I remember spending 2 months just sitting down and trying to make head and tail on 10 different packages. 8 years ago, it was easy to decide what I wanted :

-best female coverage, especially during pregnancy and a newborn baby
-covered medical tests
-the various additional options
-the reputation of the company and whether I knew the agent

The insurance coverage we have here isn't as good as in the US or Europe but even then, even doing an operation is a big deal and that option may not necessarily be the best either.

I would say that it's hard to decide on the type of insurance to take without good friends to ask for advice.

I did get a prep talk from a friend recently that one of the Takaful funds is offering GPA insurance as part of the unit rates purchase and if one wanted to include the critical illnesses, they can pay for it but still at cheaper rates than what insurance companies are offering.

well, as long as the purpose of protection is available, it should be ok.

I believe different people have different preferences. I would just take PA and Medical Insurance, the rest of the money I prefer to invest myself into AS1M and etc. In this case, you can get a ala-carte type of insurance you need. I do think that whoever afford should buy PA and medical insurance. The rest should be up to you.

Insurance is insurance, if you want to save money, put it at bank or ASN, and it is free.

And one more thing, you should consider have spent all the money you pay for insurance, as for investment link usually what you save will eventually go to pay your premium for medical insurance. so pay only what you afford as there is no return on investment whatever.

Yup, everyone have different views and needs on insurance, That is why there is so many variety of insurance in the market. Insurance plan is a product(a special product), and a product will only come out and keeps selling when there is demand.

And i agree that you should allocate portion of money that you afford to insurance. If the insurance plan makes you feels like it is a burden, then you should review your plan.

ILP usually deducts the units from your investment portion of your policy in order to pay for the riders(ie. medical, CI, payor waiver, etc.) that are attached to the ILP. So, if the funds that you have chosen fails to 'shine', your premium will surely goes to paying the rest of the riders attached. And remember to ask the agent, does he know anything about 'Top-Up' cases in ILP. Top-up cases happen whenever the units in your investment funds are insufficient to pay for the cost of insurance+riders... , you will have to top-up a certain amount of money in your renewal. Many ILP policyholders are not aware of this 'feature' in ILP.. So pls take note.

So, yes, ILP's return is not guaranteed, never listen to any guarantee mentioned by the agent as ILP will never have any kind of 'guaranteed' return. What you gonna get after 20 years is all depending on the performance of the funds chosen in your ILP... Good luck.

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Added on November 23, 2009, 7:30 pmHi myremi,

care to enlighten me how one would safe a few $$ if one took medical insurance in their early years... Med insurance are age-banded.. If you bought one at age 50 you will be charged at the banded rate at age 50. If you have bought one earlier say 40, you will still have to pay the same rate when you renew the policy at age 50. The scenario is the same as whether you are 'healthy' at the age of 50 . If there is a loading, it will happen irregardless whether you buy the policy at age 50 or age 40, still you will have to pay for some premium loading if you are not 100% fit & healthy.. Correct me if i'm wrong.

This post has been edited by numbertwo: Nov 23 2009, 07:30 PM

you save if you buy young if you choose a policy with guaranteed renewal w/o loading or exclusions. that way you get less than 100% but still pay the old premium whereas as a new customer you have to fork out extra or cant get cover at all.

Yes, when people buy ILP, they usually thought that they will be able to recover a decent amount of money at the end of the policy.

In fact, most of the money will be spent and they will get nothing except protections.

It is in constrast with normal life insurance; however, normal life insurance also spend most of the money to pay for those premium, end up they get little at the end.

That's y people said, insurance is insurance, saving is saving. you will never get ROI for insurance; there is a premium you must pay.

I think when people say "when you buy younger you pay less" is something misleading, you buy younger you should pay more, but you get protection for longer periods.

The consumer must be smart enough, because all people will only show you the "very best case" when promoting a product to you. I say it is ok for those who are rich, but for those who merely can pay up the premium, they will end up getting something under their expectation.

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Added on November 23, 2009, 8:17 pmI thought for all product, the premium is not guaranteed after 4 years?

This post has been edited by epalbee3: Nov 23 2009, 08:17 PM

it's not about premium guarantee. it's about ensuring you wont face a loading based on your personal claims. this will be the case with a number of general H&S plans and it's a good thing. it takes in a way into consideration that you joined in good health (low risk) and paid until now already if you wish to look at it this way

kurnia no loading.

kurnia only no loading and guaranteed renewal until 65. thereafter subject to their decision and then you need to take their senior policy anyway. so it allows them many times to impose loading or exclusions when you really need insurance that takes you no matter what. useless if you ask me. also lifetime limit is very low in relation to annual limit (3x only).

yes, i agree with you. if you really so keen to renew until 80, you can switch to senior medical starting 50 years old. the premium is not different.

by the way, there is an idiom spoken by our seniors: "don't afraid you won't be able to buy something, as long as you have money".

I'm not looking for a perfect coverage either. RM 50 per month is just a nice figure.

it is a burn out policy, means the premium u paid will totally pay to insurans company.
second advantages is its claim amount is less than normal one.
thirdly, the premium wont be waive if u are disable to pay it due to accident.

Tks PJUsa.. i have forgotten about this point.. thanks for the reminder..

But I won't bet that the policy will not have any change after 15-20 years...Suddenly you see 'portfolio withdrawal'... is something that we can't guarantee it won't happen forever..

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Added on November 24, 2009, 10:42 pmWhich one of the Kurnia's plan has 'guaranteed renewal'... So far their premium is not guaranteed as per their website:

PERIOD OF COVER AND RENEWAL PREMIUM
This Policy shall become effective as of the date stated in the Schedule. The Policy Anniversary shall be one year after the effective date and annually thereafter. The renewal premiums payable is not guaranteed and the Company reserves the right to revise the premium rate applicable at the time of renewal. Generally, if the health status has been good, the premium in future Policy years will increase by your attained age according to the age band.

This post has been edited by numbertwo: Nov 24 2009, 10:42 PM

well, in malaysia there is no insurance company guarantees the premium after year 4.

including ILP and life.

guaranteed renewal is not the same as guaranteed premium. guaranteed renewal means you can choose to renew but the company cant kick you out, impose individual exclusions or loadings. kurnia premium offers just that.

with respect to CI : every CI cover is a "burn" policy. its just a matter of packaging. a pure CI can be much much cheaper if that is all you want to cover. 50k cover should only cost you around 120 (either AIA or Pacific) if you buy a pure CI from their general insurance branch at age 34. so u you got a bad quote. didnt see 536 in AIA premium shedule for 50k at all. must be some other plan and not the plain vanilla CI you asked for.

So this Kurnia is not 'guranteed renewal' and premium can be loaded individually since they do not mention anything about 'portfolio loading'... so what good does it have?

Why you guys buy this kind of insuarance such a young age? Why not use the money to invest on your health?

numbertwo,

i feel the same way. the kurnia policy is not very attractive at all.

ozak,

to cover for unforseen sickness of course. also to lock in the good health status for future renewals. it's the best investment in your health (maintenance) you can make. cancer can occur without pretty much anything you can do about it. accident may cause you to require dialysis - so many things out of your hands... that is why insurance is good - you spread the risk among many and only pay the average damage ++ for sure instead of risking to face a major damage.

For CI & Medical insurance, it is not adviseable to purchase from General insurer b'coz they use an age-band premium rating. The premium is revised upwards every 3 to 5 years & for medical, once you have 'major' claim, they will load up your renewal premium.

If your age is not too advance, I recommend buying a life insurance (term or whole life) and attach CI & Medical riders. Hence you will be 'guaranteed renewals' and premium will not change (you will lock-in cheaper premium rating)

BTW, the only worthwhile life insurance to buy is term or whole life as they offer highest coverage per dollar premium. All other ILP, Saving, endownment mambo jumbo are just financing your agent's Merc ;-)

These days, ins. agents are lining up to offer annuality insurance with 3% to 4% returns when 5 years ago they said insurance co. no longer offer. I wonder whether the agents will sell me annuality insurance if the BLR is 8%? Sorry for the digression....