Insurance Agency Singapore | Commercial Insurance and Personal Insurance

  • Products
    • Commercial Insurance
      • Work Injury Compensation
      • Public Liability
      • Foreign Worker Medical
      • Foreign Worker Bond
      • Fire/Burglary Insurance
    • Personal Insurance
      • Motor Insurance
      • Travel Insurance
      • Home Insurance
      • Personal Accident
      • Domestic Maid Insurance
  • Support
  • Contact Us
  • Blog
  • About Us

Am I Wasting Money Buying Additional Medical Insurance?

10 November 2016 By admin Leave a Comment

Having addressed the healthcare financing system in Singapore, Singaporeans would still want to know the answer to the question –  who pays their medical bills? The straight answer to this is “whether it is the government, Medisave, employers, or insurance, it is ultimately Singaporeans themselves who must bear the burden”. – August 2005, vol. 34 No. 7, page 462, Annuls Academy of Medicine. This situation forms the backdrop of healthcare financing for Singaporeans and thus affects how and to what extent each person should be covered for medical insurance.

The challenge:

3m-system“I am already covered by my company, why should I need to buy additional medical insurance ?” The majority of Singaporeans are employed and thus enjoy some form of medical insurance coverage provided by their employers. As such, many Singaporeans have the mistaken impression that if their employers have provided hospitalisation and surgical coverage for them, they consider themselves to be ‘comprehensively’ and ‘fully’ covered, so they do not bother to look at any other medical coverage.

This impression is potentially hazardous as employee hospitalisation and surgical insurance in reality does not provide long term coverage and thus cannot be the foundation of a person’s medical insurance portfolio. Relying on employee medical insurance alone also carries these disadvantages:

Disadvantages:

  1. Changing jobs leads to the giving up of medical insurance from the previous employer and the enrolment in the new employer’s insurance scheme. The medical insurer will therefore change accordingly.
    • This inevitably raises the question of whether the person’s health and medical history at the point of changeover could still qualify him/her to be insured at ‘standard’ rates, and at the same terms and conditions. Thus, job moves do create uncertainty in a person’s medical insurance and subject his/her healthcare financing to risk.
  2. Employers who manage their health insurance cost would normally accept certain limitations to the policy terms and conditions. They could be in many forms, including sub-limits, deductible and co-insurance.
    • Every employee has to be aware of these limits, but in reality, many employees take them for granted by assuming that their employee health insurance covers everything.
  3. Furthermore, as some health policies are incepted without the need to declare medical history, they would automatically exclude all pre-existing illnesses or medical conditions at inception and typically for the 12 months thereafter.
    • This would be detrimental to the employee if he/she has sought medical advice or treatment for any major medical condition before policy inception.
  4. Like most private medical insurance, employee health insurance does not insure a person until the ripe old age of 100, thus exposing him/her to financing risk when they need it most during their golden years.
  5. Each insurer’s medical plan, coverage and terms and conditions of coverage can be quite different. As a result, each time a person changes employment – and thus their health insurer – he/she has to re-analyse the new insurer’s scope and extent of coverage to see if they still adequately supplement his/her personal medical plans. Owing to the tedious nature of this task, employees usually do away with it, erroneously assuming that their coverage is the same as before.

See full story at www.healthxchange.com.sg

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Filed Under: Health Tagged With: medical insurance

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Categories

  • Domestic Maids
  • Golf
  • Happenings
  • Health
  • Homepage
  • Industry
  • Interesting Stuff
  • Products
  • Tips
  • Uncategorized

Contact Us

  • 1 Soon Lee Street #02-43, Pioneer Center, Singapore 627605
  • Tel: 68978226
  • Fax 68978086
  • Business Hours:
  • Mon – Fri: 8am – 6pm

Our Location

At the west side of Singapore, our office sits on the second floor of the building.

1 Soon Lee Street
#02-43, Pioneer Center
Singapore 627605

Our Products

  • Fire/Burglary Insurance
  • Foreign Worker Bond
  • Foreign Worker Medical
  • Public Liability
  • Work Injury Compensation
  • Domestic Maid Insurance
  • Home Insurance
  • Motor Insurance
  • Personal Accident
  • Travel Insurance

Find Out More

We would love to hear your insurance needs. Tell us all about it by filling up our contact form.

If not, give us a call at +65 6897 8226
or email us at enquiry@credence.agency

Copyright © 2023 | Credence Agency