Here's My Story

For the upcoming trip to Australia, my sister advised me to get travel insurance to cover for hospitalisation due to Covid-19 infection. Hospital accommodation for non-Australia residents costs more than AUD 2,000 in normal ward and more than AUD 5,000 in critical care unit ward....per day! I normally don't buy travel insurance because I have medical insurance that also covers me when I'm overseas (for not more than 90 days for any one trip). However, recently I checked my policy document again and realised that the insurer would reimburse me in accordance with reasonable and customary charges. Basically, they would reimburse me for covered medical treatment as though it's treated in Malaysia. So, room & board charge would be like RM 250 a day. It's no way near the cost in Australia! After a quick research, I settled on Etiqa Tripcare 360, chiefly due to its cashless feature. I chose the lowest option as its RM 100k cover for hospitalisation should be more than enou...

Whenever people cast aspersion on insurance companies' conduct, I always tell them about my family's experience with Great Eastern Life . Upon my dad's demise , I started the process of claiming insurance payment from his life insurance policy. These were the required documents as stated on Great Eastern Life website: The main issue then was death certificate: the National Registration Department ("NRD") was close during MCO (their official website confirmed this), which was shocking to me because that would mean there were illegal babies born in Malaysia, right? I made sure I got everything else. I stopped reading at "Additional requirements for Accidental Death", which wasn't relevant to me but that meant I missed reading "Additional requirements for Death due to Natural Causes (Illnesses)". Yikes. More on this later. At that time, I had a couple of main questions, which I asked them over the phone: (1) Was it possible to sub...

There are companies, in certain countries, who are willing to pay more than what you'll get when you surrender your endowment or life insurance policy to your insurance company. I knew about this for about two decades already but it wasn't availble when I was working in Singapore, until now. How do such companies earn? Well, they earn the difference between the insurance benefit upon claim and the amount the paid for the policy. This will materialise if the insured lives long enough for the sum assured to exceed that said amount. This raises an interesting issue. Firstly, we need to discuss the term 'insurable interest'. A basic element of insurance is insurable interest i.e. the beneficiary will suffer some sort of loss(es) upon the demise of the insured. Classic example will be the death of a father, the breadwinner of the family, causing financial hardship to his family. He can then be the insured while the beneficiary can be his wife, children or both. When an...

I currently have CPF account in Singapore. There's money in the Special and Medisave account. Special account can only be utilised once I reach the prevailing retirement age (currently is 62) where it will be converted into something akin to a pension with some death benefit to beneficiary. I dislike this because I do not want to leave anything behind. Most of the money in the Medisave account (it's a little complicated) cannot withdrawn (paid to beneficiary upon death). It can be used to pay for some medical treatments and partial hospitalisation bill. More importantly, it can be used to buy medical insurance. However, such medical insurance is only meant for Singapore citizens and PRs, and foreigners who lose their PRs but still have employment passes (EPs). I have such medical insurance. Since it's Singapore based, it'll pay overseas hospitalisation bill only for emergency cases, which I did so when I was hospitalised for dengue fever. Currently thes...

Sometimes it's difficult to explain to others this concept in the context of statistics and insurance. So, it's a good opportunity for me to blog about this using price of food as an example. One day, Ban and I were at 6 - 10 Grill & Nasi Lemak restaurant at Aman Suria. I saw the price of the nasi lemak and I pointed to him that the prices were a little strange: Nasi lemak with (a) 1 dish - RM8.50 (b) 2 dishes - RM11.50 (c) 3 dishes - RM15.00 To better explain what I meant, I used an example: let's say I wanted to order nasi lemak with 1 dish whereas he wanted the one with 3 dishes. If we were to order (a) and (c), then the total cost is RM23.50. However, if we were to order two servings of (b) and I pass 1 dish to him (so that he has 3 dishes altogether and I have 1 dish), then the total cost is RM23.00. How did this happen? Note that the cost of increasing by 1 dish is RM3 from (a) to (b) but it's RM3.50 from (b) to (c) and thus causing internal inconsi...

As a result of this , I am now preparing for a backup plan that is quite risky and hence all the more important to get a hand of certain figures as much as possible. I would like to find out the monthly/yearly budget for the following items in Malaysia (can just assume KL): (1) Food (2) Mobile phone (3) Car maintenance (4) Car petrol (5) Motor insurance (6) Broadband Anything else I should be thinking off? There's no need to consider paying car loan, house loan, house rent or tax. I would appreciate any valuable input here. Thanks! 19 Nov 09 9.38pm update: Added broadband

A friend is considering taking up insurance, which is great as I strongly encouraged him to do so when he's young. It should be used as protection. He wouldn't want all his savings go to, say, hospitalisation, right? He did ask me a few things about insurance e.g. what he should get first, which company etc. Among many things I've advised him not to take up investment-linked policies because of a few reasons: investment risk is transferred from insurer to policyholders; better to separate investment and protection as it's cheaper doing it that way. He seems to understand. Today I met up with him for dinner Him: Oh yah, I decided to get policies from XXX company. Me: What you're getting? Him: The basic one and the hospitalisation plan. Me: What basic one? Him: The whole life one lah. Me: But XXX only have investment-linked plan leh for that. Him: Yah, that's the one. Me: But didn't I tell you about how bad investment-linked plan is? Him: Yah I k...

Continuing from previous post : Firstly, many people believed that they don't need this because "My company covers". Yes but are you married to your company? Will your company take care of you for life? Will you stay with the company forever? No, right? "Chey, it's ok what. I'll get it after I retire lor. No big deal". It's a huge deal! By the time you retire, how sure you are that you have not experienced high blood pressure, diabetes, gastritis, been hospitalised for whatever reason, etc. Besides the pain of disclosing all these in your proposal (trust me, it's really frustrating), your premium may skyrocket with loadings. At worse, you may be denied insurance. Also, how about when you're in between jobs? There's no coverage, right? In addition, generally private companies, even the MNCs, provide reimbursement up to a certain limit only and often than not it is based on the lowest ward at a government hospital. "It's ok...

Life Insurance Articles , originally uploaded by prov1112004 . Bah. Gastric yet again in the middle of the night. Been going on for past week or so already. I better see the doctor again for medication. Anyway, I've been thinking of writing a brief guide, especially for family and friends, on how to determine what life insurance you need and its relative priority between different coverage. The best person you should ask would be an independent financial advisor (not agents who are tied to only an insurance company) who is competent and truly have your interest at heart...which I admit is very difficult to find. The next best thing is to educate yourself and DIY. The type of coverage everyone should consider are as follows: (1) Hospitalisation & Surgical ("H&S") (2) Disability Income ("DI") (3) Critical Illness ("CI") (4) Total and Permanent Disability ("TPD") (5) Death (6) Partial Disability The key to determining whethe...