Is your Dread Disease or Critical Illness Coverage Sufficient When You Don't Have A Job?

Ever since I started focusing on corporate clienteles, I realised many of my personal friends and clients have also been neglecting their own insurance portfolios; so much so that most of them have stopped buying life insurance, which includes major illness coverage or some might call it critical illness coverage.

As such, many are grossly under insured and with medical costs not spared from inflation; a $50,000 or $100,000 coverage in the 90's is really miniscule in today's context.That is why I took a painstaking 3 hours (with my minimal HTML knowledge), trying to create this simple calculator for you to see why it is important to update your dread disease or critical illness cover.

Dread Disease Adequacy Calculator

How Much Coverage do you have for Major Illness / Critical Illness? (Approximate)
$
How much do you need EVERY YEAR if you are not working?
$0

100,000

Number of years your existing Sum Assured can provide for you:

SO WHAT'S AFTER THAT?

Some might argue that you already have a company insurance or a "shield plan" Well the latter is to cover the bills for a hospital stay and as for company's insurance, the chances of you staying with the company till you kick the bucket is rare these days as staff turnover is normally between 2-3 years with the Gen Y crowds and when you leave, you can't bring the firm's insurance with you. A critical illness insurance is often still needed as in most cases (eg. cancer), the staff will at most be kept with the company for 6 months or so and in the real world, will finally be asked to leave as paying for an employee who is often not in the office does not make economic sense.

So, if you were to use the dread disease adequacy calculator above, you will understand if after the money from your insurance has been exhausted (most of the time, when major illness strikes; one will attempt to find many alternative ways to recover; like going overseas or try alternative EXPENSIVE treatment), do you have a financial back up plan? Feel free to try on the calculator and give me a buzz if I made a point or if you are concerned. Just contact us here.

As at 08 January 2016, TMLS or Tokio Marine Life Insurance has launched a rider to take care of your recovery costs. Check out the details here!

NTUC Income updates on Incomeshield

With the incoming launch of Medishield Life, NTUC Income Singapore has made some changes to their health plans, Incomeshield. The amendments are as follow:

 1.  IncomeShield integration with MediShield extended from age 90 years old to 92 years old

In view of the on-going MediShield Life review, Ministry of Health (MOH) has extended the MediShield maximum coverage age from 90 years old to 92 years old, with effect from 1 March 2014. This is to ensure that insureds remain integrated with MediShield before the transition to lifelong coverage under MediShield Life.

With this interim extension, insureds covered under IncomeShield Integrated plans, who reach age 91 on or after 1 March 2014, will still remain integrated with MediShield as their policies will be automatically renewed.  

For policyholders who are currently not integrated with MediShield, this extension to 92 years old does not apply to them.

2.   Mandatory FIN (Foreign Identification Number) for IncomeShield insureds who are foreigners

Since November 2013, IncomeShield has ceased accepting new applications of insured with non-FIN identification.

As a follow-up to this, NTUC Income is working with CPF Board to write to existing policyholders with insureds who are foreigners with a non-FIN identification to get them to update Income with a valid FIN or NRIC for these insured.  

• NTUC Income will be sending letters in the 2^nd week of April 2014 to this group of policyholders.
• A copy of the letter will be carbon copied through email to the servicing adviser (if any).
• Once a copy of the FIN or NRIC identification of the insured have been received by NTUC Income, updates will be made to their policy records and to CPF Board records immediately.

This will identify any possible duplicate coverage under the Private Medical Insurance/MediShield Scheme. In the event where there is a duplicate coverage, necessary adjustments will be made to ensure that each insured has only one medical plan and overlapping premiums will be refunded to the payer accordingly. 

Increase in Medisave withdrawal limits for Medishield & "Shield Plans"

The Health Ministry in Singapore is increasing the Medisave withdrawal limits for MediShield and Integrated Shield plans premiums.

The attached

Revised Medisave Limits for "Shield" plans

revised limits will apply to all new business and renewal policies effective from 1 November 2013.